Terms & Conditions

[ralph]

HB Reg 2(3)(a) states the following:
[quote:13ab80dca7](3) For the purposes of these Regulations, a person is on an income-based jobseeker’s allowance on any day in respect of which an income-based jobseeker’s allowance is payable to him and on any day—

(a) in respect of which he satisfies the conditions for entitlement to an income-based jobseeker’s allowance but where the allowance is not paid in accordance with section 19 or 20A of the Jobseekers Act[52] (circumstances in which a jobseeker’s allowance is not payable); [/quote:13ab80dca7]

We have a case where CIS shows a break in payment to JSA(IB).

CIS shows on Award History continuous dates with nil award amount for a period of 6days.

Welfare rights person says we should treat JSA as continuous under this Reg.

Jobcentre said when someone fails to sign they have to complete a rapid reclaim.

My Benefits Officer spoke to the person in charge of processing at local JSA.

He said claimant failed to sign therefore didn’t meet conditions for entitlement. Clmt had made a backdate request for JSA which was refused as no good cause.

When the BO read him the terms of the Reg to ask if the terms of subparagraph (a) applied he didn’t think it applied.

Given the fact that a re-claim was completed along with a backdate request, this would also suggest not a continuous claim which was merely sanctioned.

Any ideas please? Does anyone have experience in applying this Reg?

If so how are you interpreting it & what info do you ask for (& from whom) to confirm it fits the criteria?

[Anselmo]

Not sure how relevant this is but since you have no replies yet I’ll throw this in!!

A few years ago someone I knew attempted to claim an Extended Payment when he found work. This was refused however, as for 1 week of the previous 26 his JSA had been sanctioned and he did not receive payment for that week. He disputed this decision, then appealed it, to no avail. The council insisted the sanction meant he was not entitled to [i:b700e78fd9]and in receipt of[/i:b700e78fd9] Jobseeker’s for the whole period.

Apparently, so they insisted, this is the way the DWP interpret the sanctioning of JSA – you are entitled but you don’t get it, so it ain’t continuous. Kind of makes sense I suppose, although a little harsh.

[Andi M]

Normally apply this for the waiting days, hadn’t considered it for breaks in payment before.

[ralph]

Andi

Sub paragraph (b) is waiting days.

[Anonymous]

If you follow the reference to s19 and s20A of the JS Act, it lists various kinds of sanctionable misconduct including failure to comply with a reasonable direction. I am not sure whether regular signing on comes under this or whether it is a separate condition of entitlement. I’ll have another look at the Act.

If signing on is not covered by s19, then I’d guess that there is an actual break in entitlement which would affect Extended Payments as you have been told.

The only other adverse consequence I can think of would be if the person concerned is a non-dep, in which case a £7.40 HB deduction would kick in if they are under 25, or a non-dep of any age for CTB would attract a lower rate deduction and also affect 2AR.

If it is the claimant who misses a signing day, then subject to the possible loss of EP some weeks down the line it doesn’t really make any difference does it?

[Andi M]

My bad, its too near lunchtime.. From the scenario you have given it would appear that it does meet the criteria for a, unless the JC know something about the claim you don’t.

(10) In this section—
(a) “employment officer” means an officer of the Secretary of State or such other person as may be designated for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Secretary of State;
(b) “jobseeker’s direction” means a direction in writing given by an employment officer with a view to achieving one or both of the following—
(i) assisting the claimant to find employment;
(ii) improving the claimant’s prospects of being employed

I would argue that although section 8 has the provision for Job Seekers to cease if the claimant doesn’t sign on, it is section 19 that is preventing the award from being immediately made again.
But as previously said it is close to lunchtime and the pub beckons to aid with wooly thinking

[Anonymous]

Just checked the JSA legislation and it looks to me as if regular signing is a separate condition of entitlement under s8 of the Act. So the reasonable directions referred to in s19 are presumably something else.

The way I read it, if you miss a signing day and don’t persuade DWP that you had good cause for that, you will actually have a break in JSA entitlement – not a non-payment sanction.

So it seems this will affect the claimant’s EP and also non-deps in the circumstances that I described earlier.

[ralph]

Peter

The problem in this case is not relating to EP.

In this case the JSA was not paid for a period of 6 days, which we took as a break in JSA(IB). The response from JSA themselves backs up this idea that it was effectively a break in his JSA claim.

The Reg requires him to satisfy the conditions for entitlement. JSA believe that as he did not sign, he did not satisfy the conditions….

Therefore we asked for details of his income, savings etc for the HB week in which we took him as not being entitled to JSA in order to assess his entitlement as a standard case for that week. [He is currently still receiving JSA(IB)]

The welfare person says that this is not necessary as the operation of this Reg clearly is in order to allows us to treat him as continuous JSA(IB) whilst he remains entitled but receives no payment, so obviously the apparent break in JSA would have no effect on HB.

The problem is identifying whether or not this situation falls within the scope of the provisions.

JSA’s apparent lack of understanding of how their actions fit in with their own legislation doesn’t help.

How would an assessor looking on CIS be able to identify the difference between someone who was sanctioned in this way, or was not entitled for any other reason?

Looking at CIS alone we’d have been prepared to say that the sitution did fit the provisions of the Reg and [i:abec9ff74f]treat JSA as continuous[/i:abec9ff74f], since the dates were all consecutive, just showing a nil entitlement for a period of 6 days.

Its the fact that both the local Jobcentre and JSA processing have treated the new period [i:abec9ff74f]as a new claim [/i:abec9ff74f]that makes us believe we can’t.

[Anonymous]

This is a case where I think it is unnecessary to worry too much about proof of income. You know exactly why there is a break in his JSA; I don’t think the s19 thing quite covers it unfortunately, but even so I see no reason to suppose that he suddenly acquired income or capital and equally suddenly got rid of it again. This is not a means-testing problem. I think the evidence shows that JSA was interrupted because of a technicality, and there has not at any stage been income in excess of the applicable amount – in other words, HB/CTB are not affected.

That was why I said it makes no difference above – yes, I can see there have been two changes of circumstance in rapid succession (off JSA and back on again) but neither of them affected the rate of HB/CTB.

[Anselmo]

It was me who brought up Extended Payments as a possibly relevant aside – apologies for derailing the thread. 😳

For what it’s worth I think Peter is (as usual) right. I think you can say with near certainity that during that week he would have had zero income and thus satisfied the means test for full HB anyway.

[Author]

Posts