25-year old Matt is an aspiring electrician who was on a college course, but the job centre instructed him to take a two-week placement at Boots. When the placement was over, he had fallen behind and couldn’t meet the college’s 97 per cent attendance rate. Going door-to-door with CVs or phoning round potential employers was not considered to be valid job searching by the job centre and so he was sanctioned. Matt says, “You’re so hungry, but you’re that sick of it you can’t even put food to your mouth. It’s horrible.”