Income Support for refugee learning english

Would anyone be able assist, we have started assisting a lot of people who have recently moved from NASS accommodation making new claims for JSA however they regularly have sanctions applied to their claims due to poor English and failing to fully complete job search to the standard require by the Job Centre.

However I have been informed that you can claim IS if you are learning English and have only arrived in the country under a year. Do you need to be on the course or can you be waiting for a place on a course. The DWP aren’t very helpful on this matter.

It’s in schedule 1B of the IS regulations. If you have the current CPAG handbook see page 30 (‘others who can claim IS’). In summary, you have to be a refugee learning English (and on a course rather than waiting for one), the course must be for more than 15 hours per week and you must have been in the UK for a year or less. IS is payable for up to 9 months.

You might want to note that while we thought that the regs would be interpreted to means a course of 15 hpw, from feedback and discussion with Scottish Refugee Council (including some correspondence they forwarded from DWP) it appears that DWP may accept several different course which total 15 hpw. I’d be careful advising anyone that DWP will definitely accept IS claims on that basis but may be worth asking them if they would if a single course of 15 hpw is not available.