JSA and lone parents

oldmotherreilly

No, because he only has the right to say that he can only work for 16 hours a week, not that he will only work school hours, unless he can prove that he has a realistic chance of securing employment during those hours. Are those jobs available during school hours and does he stand a realistic chance of getting them? If the answer is yes, then your ex could go back to the advisor and say that he wants to dispute his Jobseeker's Agreement because he feels that he can secure employment during the hours of 9-3 Monday to Friday. The issue with this is that the JCP will put a suspension on the JSA (ie he would not receive any JSA) until a Decision Maker decides who is right-your ex or the advisor and if the Decision Maker decides that the advisor is right then JSA would not be payable for as long as your ex imposed the restrictions on his availability; if the DM decided that your ex is correct, then the arrears in JSA would be paid and hopefully he would not have any further problems. So it really depends on whether your ex can prove that there are a fair few jobs out there that are available for retail, caretaking and driving during school hours and whether he is prepared to risk having his JSA stopped, even if temporarily. I think his best bet would be to make an appointment to see an advisor to discuss the issue first and then go from there-I hope he gets it sorted!

annies_mum

Thank you for taking the time to reply, i do appriciate it. I understand now how it all works however i think its dreadfully unclear the way its worded. It says on the DWP site:
Lone parents with children 12 and under can restrict their availability to work to school hours
perhaps they should make this statement less ambiguous.

oldmotherreilly

I should have said as well, that it would depend on what the advisor thinks-if your ex went back to a different advisor, they may well agree straight away with him that he can get a job in school hours looking for that type of work and then they would not put a suspension on the claim. Worth him going back to discuss it, I would think. He can always stick to the Jobseeker's Agreement that is in place if they disagree with him. Hope he gets it sorted.OMR.