UC Sanction Advice

askew_recriminat

Hello,

I appreciate there are lots of posts on this issue, but I'm having trouble finding answers to my specific questions.

I began my UC claim in May of this year. I received a sanction for missing a mandatory appointment. They are reducing my payments by £13.90 a day.

They also say 'We'll also add 7 days because this is your first sanction in the last 12 months'

My first question is with this ambiguous statement - does it mean they are starting my sanction by reducing my next payment by £13.90x7=£97.30, or does it mean I have 7 days grace from the date of the letter before the sanction begins?

My second question is - if I did have good reason for missing my appointment, but was unable to update my journal in time, will the sanction be lifted? And will I not receive my next payment until I attend the missed appointment? There are lots of good reasons why that will be difficult in the near future, but it is equally the case that in order to be able to attend appointments I will need to receive my next payment, as I have been going through personal issues and am currently far away from my normal address and depending on my next payment to return.

Any advice would be appreciated

Many thanks

NedS

Your sanction comprises two elements - an ongoing element and a fixed element (7 days in your case).

The ongoing (open-ended) element runs for the number of days since the failure (the date of the missed appointment) to the date you re-engaged - this usually means the day you made contact to rebook the missed appointment and then subsequently attended it. If you made contact on the same day as the missed appointment, booked another appointment and then attended it, the ongoing element would be 0 days. If you made contact a week later to book an appointment, and attended it then the open-ended portion of the sanction would be for the 7 days between the date of failure and the date you re-engaged to book another appointment.

The fixed element is for 7 days, because this was your first sanctionable failure in the last 12 months.

Your total sanction amount will be the total of the two, so 7 days plus however many days you receive(d) for the open-ended part. They may not know how long the open-ended part is yet as you may not have re-engaged by rebooking and attending the missed appointment.

Because the decision to give you a sanction has already been made, you have either provided your reasons but UC did not consider them good reason, or you failed to provide your reasons within 7 days, so they went ahead and made the decision to sanction you based on the information they had at the time.

If you do not agree with the decision, you can request a Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) within one calender month of the decision date. You can provide your reasons when requesting the MR. You should also explain why you were unable to provide your reasons earlier, within 7 days.

The sanction will be deducted from your next available UC payment. To end the sanction, you need to rebook and attend the missed appointment. The sanction will continue to run for as long as you continue to fail to attend a new appointment, so it is very much in your interests to work out how you can attend and get to the jobcentre. If the decision is later overturned at MR then the amounts incorrectly deducted will be refunded as an underpayment.

huckster

If you are away from your normal address you should report this change to UC and then attend a Job Centre near where you are currently living.