Work coach not adhering to single parent flexibilities re. claiming JSA

gettingtheresometime

How old is your daughter?

Undervalued

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

How old is your daughter?

Clearly school age but, presumably, not old enough to be left alone for part of the day?

That said I am struggling to see why having a, presumably, 5 to 11 year old child at home completely prevents online job searching? I am sure it restricts it to some extent, so some extra time may have to be spent after the child has gone to bed, but no school aged child should need Mummy's undivided attention for every single waking moment!

elsien

To be fair to the OP, this is less about needing huge amounts of extra time and more about being misled by the work coach. Having had long conversations with them about UJM, they are not always completely open about the system.
The OP is asking a simple question about the guidelines and whether she is within her rights to have the agreement amended over the school holidays.
If anyone is able to say yes or no, then she can look at all the other suggestions being made.
But if the guidelines are there then they should be upheld, and it's not unreasonable of the OP to be feeling slightly misled.

sangie595

I agree Elsien. But at the same time I think we have to appreciate that the others are rights as well - the "rules" will not be observed by employers, and if the OP wants to get a job, then she's going to need to be somewhat more creative. Truth be told, I think maybe the OP ought to have been a little more creative in the first place! If they can job search and so on, I'd have been tempted to say that the conversation with the work coach shouldn't have been had!

OP wants a job. Is trying to get a job. Is going to do everything they can to get one. So if they aren't avoiding job search, which they clearly aren't, I'd suggest that "you are absolutely right, so my daughter is going to be at grans for the days while I job search" is fine. Childcare arrangements are none of their business. Don't discuss them with them. And just stick to "i searched job sites for two hours, filed in an application for two hours, etc etc." If you were looking to avoid employment and wanted a ride on the taxpayer, that would be different, but it doesn't sound for one minute like you are going to do anything other than grab a job with gusto. So being just a little sparing with the truth for a very few weeks, provided you don't miss a good opportunity for yourself... Well I'm sure the job coach had bigger fish to fry. There are times when shutting up is the best part of valor - this is one of them! Don't argue. Don't stand on rights and entitlements. Work it.

gettingtheresometime

Undervalued wrote: »

Clearly school age but, presumably, not old enough to be left alone for part of the day?

That said I am struggling to see why having a, presumably, 5 to 11 year old child at home completely prevents online job searching? I am sure it restricts it to some extent, so some extra time may have to be spent after the child has gone to bed, but no school aged child should need Mummy's undivided attention for every single waking moment!

That's why I asked - if the child goes to bed at 9.30 then I'm assuming that it wasn't a child of junior school age