JSA Unfair sanction

nciaw36

No, you haven't. Only a Decision Maker can make such a decision and your advisor is not one.

Got letter for advisor at the time which says from a date to a date I have not made appropriate steps to find employment. Jobseeker's Allowance cannot be paid under normal rules. A decision will be made about this affects your claim for Jobseeker's Allowance. Leaflet applied under the JSA Hardship provision.

My advisor after giving letter withholds payment of this fortnights JSA. Been told 4 week sanction. Form to be sent to me for an appeal.

Bottom line is though I won't be receiving payment for keeping to the JSA agreement. All at the hands of 1 person who has only been signing me on for 4 weeks.

nciaw36

from a date to a date (is last 2 weeks)

Undisputedtruth

nciaw36 wrote: »

I am not happy I have to appeal to the Jobcentre on a decision made by one of the advisers there. Which sounds like a kangaroo court.

Basically it is a Kangaroo court as the decision making process is not transparent because it's made behind close doors by a jobcentre person. In my view, staff are poorly trained and they seem to make up their own rules as they go along. There appear to be a large degree of deviance between what is written in their guidance and what staff knows. I suspect some of them may even have literacy problems.

I'd suggest you request seeing the submission papers to the Deciasion Maker just in case your advisor tried to misrepresent/miscontrue your answers/reasons.

This Guardian article shows how the number of sanctions has increased by nearly 500% since 2007.

Undisputedtruth

nciaw36 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. What worries me is it is my advisors word against me in their own backyard.

Decisions are made on the balance of probabilities. But since the process lacks impartiality, it's likely Decision Maker will be bias to staff.

osdset

The OP can expect a long wait for any kind of redress at appeal, waiting lists for tribunals are hitting the one year mark. Sanctions are instant appeals are not which is one of the main reasons very few JSA appeals are taken up by claimants.

Undisputedtruth

nciaw36 wrote: »

I believe this is deliberate wouldn't be surprised if this has been repeated up and down the UK. All I know is the for next 4 weeks no income with unnecessary hassle asking for a hardship payment which no doubt won't be straight forward knowing way things have gone so far. The media with the government have been stigmatising benefit claimants. Everyone is only 1 step away from claiming benefits job security in this country is becoming non existent.

The Guardian and the Telegraph have been vocal about how jobcentre are really poor over the last few years. I don't think there are official sanction targets since DWP have denied they exist. However a recent Guardian story revealed the existence sanction targets when a Walthamstow Jobcentre email was leaked. The vile government is one thing then you have the staff doing their own thing too.

osdset

The DWP deny that JCP has targets, they also deny that ATOS has targets. The DWP is in denial generally, a bureaucracy that won't listen to reason, never apologises and never explains. A law unto itself, answerable to no one.

Two4Tuesday

nciaw36 wrote: »

Got letter for advisor at the time which says from a date to a date I have not made appropriate steps to find employment. Jobseeker's Allowance cannot be paid under normal rules. A decision will be made about this affects your claim for Jobseeker's Allowance. Leaflet applied under the JSA Hardship provision.

So the letter said a decision will be made, ie. a decision has not yet been taken. Sounds like you have been referred for a sanction but it's not yet set in stone.

If it's based on you not making appropriate steps to find employment, then your best course of action is to provide the decision maker with evidence of what steps you took to find employment during the dates in question.

The format of the letter might go something like:

My jobseeker's agreement states that I will do x, y, z.

During the dates in question, I did a, b, c, d, ... Evidence of this is provided here. These steps are reasonable and in line with my jobseeker's agreement. Under the circumstances, it would be unreasonable to sanction my claim for JSA on the grounds of not taking appropriate steps to find employment.

osdset

Since the coalition were unelected 2.25 million people on JSA have been referred for sanction.

The figures speak for themselves, something is very wrong.

http://dpac.uk.net/2013/06/jsa-benefit-sanctions-sky-rocket-under-coalition/

skintmacflint

osdset wrote: »

Since the coalition were unelected 2.25 million people on JSA have been referred for sanction.

The figures speak for themselves, something is very wrong.

If that figure is correct it does seem high.