PROTESTERS yesterday targeted the offices of the controversial US company taking over the job of assessing people for sickness and disability benefits for the Government.

Around 40 demonstrators gathered outside the Glasgow offices of Maximus for its first day in the job. It won the work after the original contractor, Atos, bought its way out the contract following a barraged of criticism.

Other protests organised by disability groups and trade unions took place at Maximus offices all over the UK. The protests came as the Church of Scotland and other church organisations across the UK demanded the end of the benefits sanctions system – where claimants lose cash for not sticking to the rules – for parents with young children.

The churches said 100,000 youngsters across the UK were hit by sanctions last year. At the same time a Holyrood committee issued a report that found lone parents with young children stand to lose more than £1,800 a year under the UK Government’s welfare reforms.

Glasgow campaigner against Maximus, Sean Clerkin, told The National that he did not expect Maximus to be better than Atos. He said: “Maximus are going to earn money over the next five years driving sick, disabled and very poor people further into the gutter of poverty.” Under Atos, Welfare Capability Assessments were criticised for finding people fit for work who were not. The tests were stressful and often intrusive, and there was mounting criticism of Atos from disability groups, trade unions, opposition politicians and Westminster’s Work and Pensions Select Committee.

The chair of the committee, Labour’s Dame Anne Begg, told The National the problem lies with the Government’s policy rather than the company delivering it. The Aberdeen South MP said: “They certainly are trying to soften their approach compared to Atos.

However, ultimately they’re delivering a Government contract to Government specifications and it’s the same contract, the same specifications, the same criteria as Atos was delivering. “Atos acted as the lightning rod for all the dissatisfaction in the way that the WCAs in particular were carried out, but ultimately the people who should have been blamed are the Government.”

Siobhan Endean, from the union Unite, which helped organise the protests, said: “Unite’s disabled members are sending a message to Maximus. The company should realise it has taken up a poisoned chalice and pull out of this contract with the ConDem government.”

One of the first jobs Maximus will be tasked with is clearing up the backlog left by Atos after it decided to only access new claims, with reassessments being ignored.

A spokesman for Maximus said: “We respect the right of anyone to protest outside assessment centres, but we ask that this is carried out in a peaceful manner and is not disruptive to the people attending the centres or our employees.”

The churches’ plea on sanctions came in a new report, which branded the UK system in the United Kingdom one of the “most severe in the developed world”.

Of the 100,000 children affected by sanctions in 2013-14, 6,500 of them were in Scotland, the report said. It also claimed more than 100 people assessed as unfit for work due to mental health problems are sanctioned each day, and some people are left without benefit by for three years.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it “did not recognise” the figures in the report, and added that those who are sanctioned and who have children receive hardship payments straight away. The churches’ report described sanctions as a “deliberate punishment” of those who fail to meet conditions imposed as part of their benefits, with religious leaders saying: “We are disturbed that a benefit system intended to provide for the needy and vulnerable is used as a means of coercion and compliance.”

The Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee commissioned researchers at Sheffield Hallam University to look at the impact of welfare reforms. They found lone parent families would lose £1,800, but couples with dependent children will be only £400 better off.

In total, families with children will lose an estimated £960 million a year, the research claimed. The director of campaign group One Parent Families Scotland, Satwat Rehman, said: “It is scandalous that we are witnessing a dramatic rise in the numbers of lone parents financially penalised as a result of welfare changes.”