question re work focused interview

katiesmummy

one of my pregnancy buddies had a letter from the jobcentre on friday saying that she has to go for a work focused interview as part of her claim for income support. she is due around the same time as me, so i told her to phone them up and explain that she is pregnant and will not be in any position to work for at least 6 months and does she still need to go- they said that she has to go or her income support will stop.

she is not complaining about having to go for the interview, but i cant help thinking its a bit of a waste of her and the jobcentres time seeing as she is 8 months pg and even if she was able to work right now i doubt she would find a company to employ her.

my question is, why are they making her go for this interview when it is blatantly obvious that she is in no position to look for a job right now or in the very near future? would it not be better to defer the interview for 3 months or so as once the baby is born she will have a better idea of where she stands?

Hapless_2

She must go or she will lose benefits, the interviews are nothing to worry about but she has to go.

Fran

It doesn't sound right to me, I would get her to double check this; if she is over 37 weeks then it's full term and I can't believe they can compel someone at that stage of pregnancy to go to a 'work focused' interview. If they can then she should be putting in a complaint!

Hapless_2

Fran wrote: »

It doesn't sound right to me, I would get her to double check this; if she is over 37 weeks then it's full term and I can't believe they can compel someone at that stage of pregnancy to go to a 'work focused' interview. If they can then she should be putting in a complaint!

They can, I was called for one when youngest was less that 2 weeks old and had to attend. Luckily they agreed to do it over the telephone as I couldn't actually walk at that point.

Hapless_2

http://www.lawcentreni.org/EoR/income_support.htm

A person must show good cause within five working days of the date on which the interview was to take place or one month if new facts become evident and these facts show good cause for not attending.
In deciding if good cause is applicable, the decision maker must take into account:
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]any misunderstanding due to learning, literacy or language difficulties or misleading information from the agency;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]attendance at a doctor's or dentist's surgery, or accompanying a person for whom s/he cares, where the appointment could not have reasonably been rearranged;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]difficulties with transport and no reasonable alternative was available;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]practice of religion preventing attendance at a fixed time with no reasonable alternative available;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]attendance at a job interview;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]self employed work if trying to become self employed;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]the person claiming, a dependant or someone being cared for having an accident, illness or relapse;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]attendance at the funeral of a close friend or relative;[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms, Arial, Helvetica]disability which made attendance impracticable.[/FONT]


Although this is from Norn Ireland, I should imagine they are standard rules.

rachnbri

I'm a lone parent adviser and I defer interviews for women who are pregnant or have just given birth until 16 weeks after baby's birth. I understood this to be standard procedure.

Call the number on the letter and ask to speak to the actual adviser - not the admin team - and ask them to defer the interview.

katiesmummy

rachnbri wrote: »

I'm a lone parent adviser and I defer interviews for women who are pregnant or have just given birth until 16 weeks after baby's birth. I understood this to be standard procedure.

Call the number on the letter and ask to speak to the actual adviser - not the admin team - and ask them to defer the interview.

she did call them as soon as she got the letter- i was at her house at the time. she explained that she is 34 weeks pg and would obviously be giving birth very soon and that she will be in no position to work for several months (hubby left her 6 months ago for another woman whuch is why she is claiming in the first place). the man said that she would still have to have an interview but that someone could come to her house as she is having trouble just getting around, and that she would get a call to arrange the home visit. about an hour later a lady called back and said that a home visit would take several weeks to arrange and that it was in her best interests to come to the arranged interview as her benefits would stop otherwise. they did say that she wont be contacted regarding work for 3 months after the baby is born, but i still fail to see the point of the interview NOW if you know what i mean, its a total waste of the jobcentre's time!

earthmother

I had to go for one of these interviews a couple of years back. I'm still not sure why as we weren't, to my knowledge on any of the trigger benefits (or is IB one of them?).

I was there 10 minutes before my appointment, was ignored for about an hour whilst the person due to interview me, and other staff, chatted, had coffee, fiddled with piles of paper - in fact it appeared do anything but work (and I wasn't the only one sat there waiting for them), then I was finally called across.

I sat down, the woman asked why I wasn't working, I said 'well, as you can see (she had a screen up that I could read) my husband is disabled and I receive carers allowance for him. We also have two children not yet of school age'. She then turned around, said 'ok, we don't need to see you then - you can go'


Argh!! :mad: No apology, nothing - and it's not like I hadn't phoned them when the letter first came through to explain exactly the same thing. I'd had to leave my husband to deal with the children as we had no-one who could have helped out (that effort set him back by a couple of weeks with regard to what he could do), I'd spent money on travel costs to get there and back that we didn't really have at that point, and we'd both spent the previous weeks worrying about what might happen. :wall:


At the end of the day, they were just being awkward for the sake of it, and probably to massage their figures.


I hope your friends appointment goes better than that - you can't get out of these interviews, so you just have grin and bear it I'm afraid :rolleyes2

rachnbri

katiesmummy wrote: »

she did call them as soon as she got the letter- i was at her house at the time. she explained that she is 34 weeks pg and would obviously be giving birth very soon and that she will be in no position to work for several months (hubby left her 6 months ago for another woman whuch is why she is claiming in the first place). the man said that she would still have to have an interview but that someone could come to her house as she is having trouble just getting around, and that she would get a call to arrange the home visit. about an hour later a lady called back and said that a home visit would take several weeks to arrange and that it was in her best interests to come to the arranged interview as her benefits would stop otherwise. they did say that she wont be contacted regarding work for 3 months after the baby is born, but i still fail to see the point of the interview NOW if you know what i mean, its a total waste of the jobcentre's time!

Sounds very odd to me. These interviews can be and are deferred. And even if she didn't turn up her benefit wouldn't be stopped - a 20% sanction would be imposed. It is definitely a work focused interview and not something else?
Your friend should call back and ask to speak to the adviser services manager they should be able to defer it in this situation.

Hapless_2

Is it for lone parent work focused interview?

If not the rules may be slightly different than those rachnbri.

None of mine were lone parent, one was a "for partners" and one "for carers".

katiesmummy

rachnbri wrote: »

Sounds very odd to me. These interviews can be and are deferred. And even if she didn't turn up her benefit wouldn't be stopped - a 20% sanction would be imposed. It is definitely a work focused interview and not something else?
Your friend should call back and ask to speak to the adviser services manager they should be able to defer it in this situation.

as far as i remember on the letter it is definitely a work focused interview. i will tell her to call and speak to the person she actually has the appointment with direct tomorrow.

thats why i was querying, it sounded a bit strange to me as well!