The Guardian. Labour demands action over jobcentre targets

Labour responded to fresh evidence suggesting jobcentres around the country are being given targets to find reasons to take away jobseeker's allowance from claimants by demanding that the government speed up and widen the remit of an independent review into the regime of benefit sanctions.

Liam Byrne, shadow work and pensions secretary, said his party would table amendments in the Lords on Monday to widen the terms of the proposed inquiry if ministers did not give an undertaking "to get to the bottom of every sanction issued by a jobcentre where targets were in operation".

The shadow cabinet member was responding to an internal email from a jobcentre manager published in the Guardian this week that appeared to indicate that there were targets and league tables of sanctions being deployed in Walthamstow jobcentre. An adviser manager in the jobcentre had written: "As you can see Walthamstow are 95th in the league table out of only 109 [jobcentres in London and the Home Counties]."

Jobcentre staff have since contacted the Guardian to say that it is widespread practice for managers to set targets for removing benefits, sometimes under the guise of benchmarks or expectations for the number of sanctions levied. A separate investigation suggests there is evidence from jobcentres around the UK that pressure is being applied on staff to remove more people's benefits.

Emergency legislation is being passed to prevent the DWP having to repay nearly £130m in benefit claims following the court of appeal's "Poundland" ruling that people had unlawfully been made to work unpaid.

In a letter to Duncan Smith on Friday, Byrne said scandals such as the one published in the Guardian were "exactly why we sought and secured independent review of the sanctions regime written in to the jobseekers' bill.

"In the light of these latest revelations, can I ask you to guarantee – today – that this independent review will get to the bottom of every sanction issued by a jobcentre where targets were in operation."