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Bosses at Scotland’s biggest benefits centre have told staff to focus on sanctioning claimants and to forget about processing appeals until after Christmas, according to a whistleblower.

The Department for Work and Pensions employee has blown the lid on a drive to prioritise sanctions over appeals after being sickened by the management edict.

The insider, who handles claims and sanctions at one of the busiest DWP centres in the country, said:

● Staff are overwhelmed by the volume of appeals against sanctions.

● Simple appeals against benefit sanctions are piled up back to October.

● Staff processing claims have been told to focus on sanctions only until the New Year, shelving appeals.

The DWP strongly denied the claims. A spokesman said: “These allegations are untrue.”

But SNP MP Anne McLaughlin, whose Glasgow North East constituency takes in the benefits centre, will press the UK Government for a ministerial response to the claims later this week.

She said: “I’ve never heard anything so mean-spirited in my life.

“I am absolutely gobsmacked by the callousness of the directions being given to DWP staff just before Christmas.

“Nobody should have to endure the misery of having their benefits stopped at Christmas, let alone face an increase in the likelihood of a sanction.

“Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green – or should we call him Damian Grinch – must explain exactly why this appalling guidance is being implemented up and down the country and immediately call a halt to all benefit sanctions at Christmas.”

The accusation against DWP management comes from within the massive Northgate office in Glasgow, one of six centres that process claims and sanctions from across the UK.

The whistleblower revealed staff have been overwhelmed by the number of decisions they are asked to process and that managers have ordered them to prioritise sanctions over appeals until January 9.

More than 1500 people work at the Glasgow office, of whom about 150 are “decision makers”, but the insider told us: “Quite simply, there’s not enough staff to do the work.”

He explained: “The work comes in as ‘tasks’, a certain number a day on which I have to make a decision. But there are more tasks coming in than I can clear, so what the management do is let one lot of work pile up and focus on one aspect of the job.”

As well as processing claims, staff have to make decisions on sanctions. After someone loses a benefit the first time for a minor infraction, such as missing an appointment, the penalty goes for “mandatory reconsideration” – a process of confirming or repealing the sanction.

Sanction appeals go through the process of mandatory reconsideration before being considered by an independent appeals service.

But, according to our source, staff at Northgate have been told to forget about processing mandatory appeals for the time being.

(Image: Leon Neal/Getty)

The insider said: “Mandatory reconsideration should be completed within 10 days, although claimants are told it could take 20 days.

“But they have been piling up since October.

“They are in their thousands now and we have been told to prioritise sanctions. That is all we are allowed to do at the moment.

“They have taken the mandatory referrals out of our task list. We do only a handful a day – about 50 nationwide are dealt with in a day if an MP or the claimants start making a noise about it.”

The DWP employee said the instructions were verbal orders from management delivered at

staff meetings, adding: “This has actually been going on for more than a month now.

“They have not allowed us to do anything except sanction decisions.

“It means someone sanctioned this month will have no money for the rest of the month.”

The source added: “The whole point of sanctions is not to punish people but to educate someone into changing their behaviour – and a sanction should only take a few days to sort out.

“But I am dealing with incidents from July and claimants then have multiple sanctions dealt with under what we call a ‘duplicate task scan’.

“That means you can get a 100-day sanction, which means no benefits for three months. All you get is housing benefit, and that goes directly to the claimant, so they spend rent money on messages and fall into arrears.

“I have worked at the DWP for years and this is the worst I have ever seen it. Management are in denial about the situation.

“Roughly, we do about 800 to 1000 decisions a day at Northgate – and in that office alone, we are facing a stockpile of thousands of tasks.”

The revelations come amid plans by the Tory Government to close eight out of 16 Jobcentres in Glasgow.

McLaughlin said: “For someone struggling to make ends meet, Christmas is always going to be a difficult time with lots of added financial pressure.

“But if a person is sanctioned in December they will be left with absolutely nothing – unless they can face going to a food bank.

“For someone to have their benefits stripped from them is bad enough but at this time of year it is truly wicked.

“They won’t be able to take their kids to see the Christmas lights because they won’t have the bus fare, there won’t be any chance of going to a local panto.

“It also means those constituents who are confident their sanction will be overturned and who are banking on getting that before Christmas are waiting in vain – even though mandatory reconsideration decisions are supposed to be made within 10 days of the complaint.”

DWP officials said workloads at benefits centres, and how resources are utilised, are kept under constant review.