Guidance

Sanctions durations and rate: background information and methodology

Information about the benefit sanctions duration statistics and methodology, including the calculation for the point-in-time rate.

Published 16 August 2017
Last updated 23 February 2021 — see all updates

• From: Department for Work and Pensions

Documents

Benefit sanctions durations and sanction rate calculation: explanation of methodology

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Details

Benefit sanction durations is the length of time that a claimant has a reduction to their benefit due to a sanction.

Read the benefit sanctions statistics.

Published 16 August 2017
Last updated 23 February 2021 + show all updates

1. 23 February 2021

   Added information about the Universal Credit sanctions statistics - in the section on the limitations of the statistics. The latest release of sanctions statistics has been published today, 23 February 2020.

2. 10 November 2020

   Revised background information and methodology - updated to support the latest release of sanctions statistics, also published today (10 November 2020).

3. 6 December 2019

   Published revised version, dated December 2019. Added further clarification surrounding the methodology for calculating sanction durations and rates. Also published HTML version.

4. 13 August 2019

   Published revised version, now dated August 2019. This has been updated to support the latest release of sanctions statistics (these have data to April 2019).

5. 14 May 2019

   Published revised version, now dated May 2019. This has been updated to support the latest release of sanctions statistics (these have data to January 2019).

6. 13 November 2018

   Published a revised version of 'Benefit sanctions durations and sanction rate calculation: explanation of methodology'. The new version is dated November 2018 and has been updated to support the latest release of sanctions statistics (with data to July 2018).

7. 15 May 2018

   Published a revised version (May 2018) of 'Benefit sanctions durations and sanction rate calculation: explanation of methodology'. Updated information about matching sanctions to payment drops on page 5.

8. 21 February 2018

   Published a revised version of 'Benefit sanctions durations and sanction rate calculation: explanation of methodology'. The new version is dated February 2018 and has been updated to support the latest release of sanctions statistics.

9. 15 November 2017

   Published a revised version of 'Benefit sanctions durations and sanction rate calculation: explanation of methodology'. The new version is dated November 2017 and has been updated to support the latest release of sanctions statistics.

10. 16 August 2017

    First published.