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Benefits Conditionality in the United Kingdom: Is It Common, and Is It Perceived to Be Reasonable?

Baumberg Geiger, Ben; Scullion, Lisa; Edmiston, Daniel; de Vries, Robert; Summers, Kate; Ingold, Jo; Young, David

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Authors

Ben Baumberg Geiger

Daniel Edmiston

Robert de Vries

Kate Summers

Jo Ingold



Abstract

Programme‐level data suggest that increasing numbers of claimants are subject to work‐related behavioural requirements in countries like the United Kingdom. Likewise, academic qualitative research has suggested that conditionality is pervasive within the benefits system, and is often felt to be unreasonable. However, there is little quantitative evidence on the extent or experience of conditionality from claimants' perspectives. We fill this gap by drawing on a purpose‐collected survey of UK benefit claimants (n = 3801). We find that the stated application of conditionality was evident for a surprisingly small proportion of survey participants—even lower than programme‐level data suggest. Unreasonable conditionality was perceived by many of those subject to conditionality, but not a majority, with, for example, 26.2% believing that work coaches do not fully take health/care‐related barriers into account. Yet, alongside this, a substantial minority of claimants not currently subject to conditionality (22.4%) report that conditionality has negatively affected their mental health. We argue that reconciling this complex set of evidence requires a more nuanced understanding of conditionality, which is sensitive to methodological assumptions, the role of time and implementation and the need to go beyond explicit requirements to consider implicit forms of conditionality. In conclusion, we recommend a deeper mixed‐methods agenda for conditionality research.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 17, 2024
Online Publication Date Feb 6, 2025
Publication Date Feb 6, 2025
Deposit Date Mar 14, 2025
Publicly Available Date Mar 14, 2025
Journal Social Policy & Administration
Print ISSN 0144-5596
Electronic ISSN 1467-9515
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.13119
Keywords conditionality, benefits, social protection, welfare, inequalities, sanctions

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Benefits Conditionality in the United Kingdom: Is It Common, and Is It Perceived to Be Reasonable? (274 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





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