Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the reasons for regional variations in the number of sanctions issued to benefit claimants by job centres.
Local and district management are responsible for ensuring Jobcentre Plus staff apply labour market conditionality fairly and consistently and to make sure referrals to decision makers are appropriate and of consistently good quality.
Decisions are subject to quality assurance process to ensure that Decision Makers continuously apply the law fairly and consistency.