JSA was a month late in payment is this normal

hettyGreek

Hello, JSA missed my payment for mid july. Paid start of aug normally and then had a double payment just now for mid aug. This is a claim that has been going a few months with no changes in my circumstances.

Is this supposed to happen for JSA? The staff in the JSA say this didn;t happen, but from my statements i Know it did, and was difficult without any money for two weeks.

thanks

TELLIT01

The obvious question is why didn't you contact JSA at the time the payment was missed? If a payment has been blocked by the system for any reason it won't be released until you contact JSA.

Mersey_2

Sounds like a clerical error by a JCP member of staff (although 1 in 1000 are IT errors).


Send a letter/email a complaint to the JCP manager.

TELLIT01

Mersey wrote: »

Sounds like a clerical error by a JCP member of staff (although 1 in 1000 are IT errors).


Send a letter/email a complaint to the JCP manager.

From the OP it doesn't seem that any contact was made with JSA to question non receipt of payment until some time after the event. I don't see a complaint achieving much.
There are many events which can put a temporary block on payment. This is generally to ensure that over payments aren't made. Most people will contact the benefit office on the day the payment fails to hit their account, at which point action can be taken to resolve the issue.

Mersey_2

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I don't see a complaint achieving much.

An explanation and apology at least, hopefully. Plus a consolatory payment for the maladministration [if it is]


I take your point - although I doubt the DWP are competent enough for the cunning plan you suggest, ie stop payments at random for either the mere fun of it - or to detect fraud - without warning to see whether a claimant contacts them.


Without the JSA £ payment, a claimant may not be able to telephone, of course.

Poppie68

Maybe if the DWP system shows it as paid on the correct day it could be a bank error, have you queried it with the bank at all?

TELLIT01

Mersey wrote: »

An explanation and apology at least, hopefully. Plus a consolatory payment for the maladministration [if it is]


I take your point - although I doubt the DWP are competent enough for the cunning plan you suggest, ie stop payments at random for either the mere fun of it - or to detect fraud - without warning to see whether a claimant contacts them.


Without the JSA £ payment, a claimant may not be able to telephone, of course.

"Consolatory payment"! No chance.

I haven't suggested that DWP randomly stop payments. An example of the sort of thing which will automatically stop payment is a customer also claiming another benefit, and any change being registered on that system. It will be fed through to the JSA system as a change of circumstances and a 'case control' on JSA will prevent release of the next payment. The not unreasonable assumption is that the customer will notice a lack of payment and contact the office.

JSA claimants have to attend the JC on at least a 2 weekly basis but the OP would appear either not to have noticed that payment had stopped or not raised the problem then either.

Mersey_2

TELLIT01 wrote: »

"Consolatory payment"! No chance.

but the OP would appear either not to have noticed that payment had stopped or not raised the problem then either.

We'll see.


Clearly, a consolatory payment would be recommended due to non-payment and delay as both are maladministration.


I've known claimants receive £50 for such an event, as well as refund of bank charges caused as a consequence of payment failure (in that case it was the JCP staff member failing to press a button; but, I take your point that it COULD be as a result of the OP claiming Tax Credits etc, although there's no suggestion of this).


It isn't the OP/claimant's role to do the DWP's job for them (although I can understand how it may feel as if it is at times).