IDS Hiding Poverty Statistics until After the Election

Benefits and Work have this story, IDS hides poverty statistics until after the election, reporting that the Tories do not intend to publish the true figures on how people have been affected by their welfare reforms until after the election. It begins

Crucial statistics on the effects of the governments welfare reforms will be deliberately delayed until after the election, to prevent academics and campaigners discovering the effects of policies such as the bedroom tax, changes to disability living allowance and employment and support allowance and increased sanctions.

The Households Below Average Income figures will be two and a half years out of date by the time of the election.

Complaints about the delay in publication were made to Iain Duncan Smith as long ago as last September, but with no effect. IDS has also continued to refuse to meet with the Trussell trust to discuss food poverty.

This makes you wonder how damaging the statistics will be, if they don’t want the electorate knowing them in time to vote them out?

Answers on a postcard, please.

The answer must be: very, very damaging. And it’s long past time they were voted out. So do so in March.

Benefit Sanctions at Record Levels

The website Benefits and Work, which also gives a fortnightly news bulletin to subscribers about ESA, PIP and DLA, has reported that the number of people claiming ESA, who have been sanctioned has reached an all-time high. The article begins

Sanctions against employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants in the work-related activity group have hit a new record high, according to DWP figures released today.

In September 2014, the most recent month for which statistics are available, 3,828 ESA claimants were hit with a sanction. The total for the preceding month was 3,096.

It’s a very short piece that also gives the reasons why nearly 4,000 claimants have been sanctioned. It reports, however, that the DWP has so far not given a reason for the massive rise in sanctions since 2012.

The page also links to a fuller set of statistics.

I’m not remotely surprised that the government hasn’t given out these statistics. They have refused to release the figures for the number of people dying after having been assessed as ‘fit for work’ by Atos to Mike and other left-wing bloggers, after all. And as Johnny Void has repeatedly pointed out, they also won’t give details of the firms signed up for the Work Programme. Their reason? There would be too much of a public backlash against this firms, and this would cause it to fail.

The government is keenly aware how unpopular workfare, Atos and the whole fraudulent sanctions system is. They don’t want the embarrassment of having this revealed to the world at large, and so be unable to supply effective serf labour to their business friends.