Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many job seekers diagnosed with dyslexia have been sanctioned for failure to submit (a) paperwork and (b) online documentation in each of the last five years.
Sanctions are only used in a minority of cases and when people fail to meet their conditionality requirements without good reason. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities and any evidence they provide, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted. Claimants can send paperwork and online documentation to be considered as part of this process but not submitting this is not, in itself, a reason for a sanction.
The Department publishes quarterly statistics on Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance sanctions, including a breakdown by sanction referral reason, as part of the Benefit Sanction Statistics publication, which can be accessed at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions
The specific information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.