Appealing a decision

dookar

Absolutely, it's always commendable to do your research. I just suspect the decision is erroneous in law

MikeAppleton

I believe the document in itself is incredibly ambiguous. "A claimant shows good cause if they are dealing with the death of a close relative or friend".

For how long can a person be described as dealing with a death? A week? A month? A year? I think it's this ambiguity which favoured me, all I needed to do was show I was dealing with it at the time of the missed appointment.

Contract ambiguity 'generally' favours the party not drafting it up and in not stating timescales, the DWP are leaving much to interpretation.

I don't believe the decision itself was erroneous, I demonstrated that the death affected me at the time and could have been a contributory factor.

It does however, open up a can of worms, if someone can show that a death of a friend from a year ago is still affecting them, can that be seen as good cause? I'm sure that it would be scrutinised i.e. medical records of a psychotherapist, but I think even that could be interpreted as good cause without the disambiguation of the "rules".

dookar

That's because your viewing that paragraph in isolation.

Point 1 tells us that good cause only applies if the claimant is being treated as available for various reasons.

So we then have to consider for how long and when the claimant can be considered as available for those reasons. To do that we must look at paragraph 21332 which tells us the claimant may be treated as available whilst they deal with the circumstance and for a maximum of one week. Usually, in the event of a bereavement, the 'dealing with' would be arranging the funeral etc and the week for which the treat applies would be very close to the date of death, this is why I considered the dates to be important.

However, all of this may be academic because the law requires evidence to be presented with five working days of the failure to attend, any new evidence produced beyond that time limit cannot be considered. I don't know the content of the email you sent, obviously, so that might not matter

MikeAppleton

Section 21332 is specific to being able and available for work (which I was) and is written to ensure that those dealing with the deaths of loved ones are not treated any differently than someone who is not, even though that person might have addition circumstances to consider. That's a different matter entirely to missing a jobseekers direction.

dookar

I missed that you were directed to attend. Without knowing the wording of the direction, it seems highly unusual to direct a claimant to attend the job centre - this is already covered by regulation 23 of the regs so a direction would be meaningless.

Anyway, 20939 states that good cause is shown if the claimant is being treated as available. It is entirely dependant on 21332 and, from memory, 20940 directs the DM to consider 21332

tokenfield

MikeAppleton wrote: »

I think the point is being missed here. Whether or not the bereavement affected my ability to think straight (even I don't know whether the death of my brother contributed to my confusion, but I argued my case that it could be a contributing factor), it's the argument I thought gave me the best option of winning, and that's the advice I'm giving, to read and re-read the decision makers guide until you find your best point of contention. If you can't find anything, then you're culpable.

Not all bereavements affect people like you say it did you - everyone is different.

I know of some that lost their last parent and 24 hours later they were arguing (brother & sister) how long it would take to get at the money!!

MikeAppleton

It's actually particularly usual to direct a claimant to attend the jobcentre now apparently. Once per fortnight for the regular "signing on" appointment and once per fortnight to attend the ad-hoc appointment.

My availabilty was not called into question per-se, the reason for the sanction was not for not being available, if it was, things might have been different and I would have had to approach it from a different angle or accept it. Failing to comply with a jobseekers direction (as they call it) is treated differently than being unavailable for work.

Interesting to hear from someone who seems to know the ins and outs of it all.

dookar

does seem strange. if you were directed to attend then the direction wasnt valid, it would have to direct you to take a specific action intended to increase your chances of funding work. for example, a direction to attend and discuss a specific vacancy it course would be okay.

just attending is not specific enough and any decent decision maker would allow any doubt arising from a failure to comply. though they would still need to consider regulation 23 and failure to attend.

sorry for going on,I can be a bit anal about these things

MikeAppleton

dookar wrote: »

sorry for going on,I can be a bit anal about these things

No worries, it's interesting to hear someone argue the other side so to speak.

The actual ad-hoc appointment is a direction in itself. It differs from the regular one in that the regular one is for you to show you have looked for work and to declare you have done no work since your last signing. The ad-hoc appointments are with your personal advisor and are designed to get you into work, they are an assistance and as such, it's considered a direction.

So failure to attend (and refusal which amounts to the same thing) constitutes you refusing assistance to find work. A bad thing obviously, and I can completely understand the reasons for action on their side. That's why most appeals are considered frivolous I guess, but mine certainly wasn't, at least in my own opinion and as it transpired, that of the judge's.

It's entirely possible of course, that I might just have caught a good judge and in having a chat with him after the hearing, it might have swayed him, I can be quite cunning like that, but even so, I believe him and myself were compliant and logical in how we read the possible ambiguity of the guide.

dookar

Hmmm, in my experience, just because the job centre do something doesn't mean it's right. They tend not to understand the legislation behind what they do.

As I say, I haven't seen your direction, but you should check out 34591 et seq, particularly 34593