Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit claimants have been given a yellow card warning since the introduction of such a warning; and of those claimants how many were not subsequently sanctioned.

A Jobseekers’ Allowance Sanctions “Early Warning” Trial was launched in March 2016 in Scotland. The trial is testing whether giving claimants a warning of an intention to sanction, and an extra 14 days to seek advice and support to provide additional or new evidence to provide good reason will be helpful to them and potentially reduce the volume of sanctions and reconsiderations.

Data is currently being collected about claimants who have been subject to the new process so it is not possible at this stage to provide the information requested. An interim evaluation of the trial will be published in Autumn 2016 and a final evaluation in Spring 2017.