Question about B7 form arriving late

MRix85

Hi, I started receiving jobseekers allowance on the 14th October, and today, the 15th November I received a letter and a B7 form. the letter was dated the 27th October and it said the form should be signed and posted on the 7th November, so obviously it is a week late in getting to me. I got the next one for the 7th-21st November on friday 14th and was dated the 10th Nov

My question is will I get sanctioned? or lose my jsa because the form was late.

Jobcentre is not open tomorrow as it is a Sunday and was wondering if anyone here knew for some piece of mind.

I should say that I have not done any work this past month. so there is nothing to declare

Thank you

gallifreyseven

Hi MRix

Take a look at the envelopes - if the postmark shows a later date than the letter, you can show this to the Jobcentre as proof. If the postmark is within a day or two of the letter date (or there isn't one), raise a complaint with Royal Mail and show all three documents to the Jobcentre.

This is technically a sanctionable "offence" although you should be able to get it overturned (you may need to work your way up the Jobcentre chain of command to do this). I would hope it would be reasonable enough to accept that, whilst the form is late, the information won't impact the award. Otherwise, you have this:

The Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations (2013) state:
(7) Where, pursuant to paragraph (2) or (3), a claimant is required to provide certificates, documents or other evidence they must do so within seven days of being so required or such longer period as the Secretary of State may consider reasonable.
legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/378/regulation/31/made

In this case, it is reasonable that you will be providing the completed B7 on the first working day after receiving the form.

Interestingly, the DWP manuals say:
Allowance must be made for posting where a notification is made by post. Where the information is to be obtained by post the adviser should normally make some attempt to contact the claimant by telephone or face to face to inform that a letter they should respond to is on its way to them.
gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/373189/dmgch34.pdf

So if they disagree, you could remind them of this entry in their manuals. Personally, I would be brazen enough to tell them they need to prove they tried phoning me before anything they say is listened to! I don't recommend doing that though. :eek:

MRix85

thank you for your reply and advice, unfortunately there is no post mark on the enveloped (the brown ones with UK Mail on it) but I will contact them tomorrow morning and try to get it sorted out.

thanks again

MRix85

just an update, they said if you did no work then you dont need to fill in the b7 form and the letter declaring that there were no changes to my circumstances was fine and there was no sanction for it being late. maybe for a change they were quite understanding. I just wrote a note explaining that I got it late and everything was fine.