Latest editorial
JOBCENTRE staff labouring under the Tories’ new sanctions regime cut off Scots’ benefit payments nearly 900,000 times last year, a new report has claimed.
Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) pleaded in a report yesterday for an urgent overhaul of the draconian scheme.
It estimated that 898,000 sanctions were levied against benefit claimants over the past 12 months — ostensibly for failing to meet requirements such as attending jobcentre meetings or doing enough to find work.
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE
