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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Income support, JSA and tax credits  →  Thread

Can a retained worker register at the Jobcentre as a jobseeker even where not entitled to JSA following failed GPOW?

bristol_1
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WRAMAS Bristol City Council

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I’d be grateful for any help with this one.

So CPAG Benefits for Migrants handbook p.148 states that for retained worker status, in order to be registered as a jobseeker you must register with the JCP. Best way is to claim JSA, but - “If you are not entitled to benefit, contact the jobcentre and claim NI credits on the basis of unemployment. You do not need to receive JSA or UC in order to be registered as a jobseeker.”

My client has been refused JSA following a claim where GPOW was failed. I have not seen the decision notice yet. In practical terms does anyone know how she can still register with the JCP, and could she still do this
a) if the JSA decision is that we cannot pay you JSA; and/or
b) if the JSA decision is that there is no entitlement to JSA
?
The aim is to get HB paid on the basis of retained worker status tbut I am struggling to see how she can register as a jobseeker as the CPAG BfM book suggests, without a JSA claim?

bristol_1
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WRAMAS Bristol City Council

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Client is a single Polish woman with a child aged 4 in nursery (due to enter Reception class in Sep 2017), and is pregnant with a due date of March 2017.  So no derivative RTR from child.

She came to UK 28/10/2011 and claimed JSA and HB, her first son was born 28/10/2012. She worked in various jobs from Dec 2013 to 07/10/2016 but there is a gap with no paid employment and no JSA claim from Aug 2015 to June 2016. So it appears no permanent RTR from 5 years either due to the gap…

She claimed JSA 21/10/16 but was not paid having already had 91 days as a jobseeker and was due a GPOW, then made a misadvised claim to IS which was refused as her child is not in school education. She has claimed JSA again which has just been refused - but as I say I’ve not seen the decision.
No spouse or CP and not carer of another family member.

Simon
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Charlotte Keel Welfare Rights, Bristol CAB

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If your client can demonstrate they established worker status in the period she was working between June and Oct 2016, then she should not have been subject to the GPoW test upon claiming JSA due to retained worker status. It could also be argued that she has a Saint Prix R2R in the late stages of pregnancy and following childbirth, provided she maintained her worker status by registering as a jobseeker in sufficient time when involuntarily unemployed.

SamW
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Lambeth Every Pound Counts

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Not necessarily a direct answer but one of my colleagues has had a similar case where client’s JSA was stopped after GPOW was applied when it shouldn’t have been (client had retained status), client succeeded at tribunal, DWP then refused to pay his backdated JSA as he had not been signing on.

Colleague is still working on this and hoping he can get it resolved in client’s favour but thought it was worth raising in response.

chacha
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Benefits dept - Hertsmere Borough Council

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SamW - 20 January 2017 05:30 PM

.......client’s JSA was stopped after GPOW was applied when it shouldn’t have been (client had retained status), client succeeded at tribunal, DWP then refused to pay his backdated JSA as he had not been signing on.

And they are supposed to be helping people back to work, back on their feet?

Unconscionable! Probably helping more into despair, illness poverty!

Cordelia
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Welfare rights officer - Wrexham Council Welfare Rights Team

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SamW - 20 January 2017 05:30 PM

Not necessarily a direct answer but one of my colleagues has had a similar case where client’s JSA was stopped after GPOW was applied when it shouldn’t have been (client had retained status), client succeeded at tribunal, DWP then refused to pay his backdated JSA as he had not been signing on.

Colleague is still working on this and hoping he can get it resolved in client’s favour but thought it was worth raising in response.

Could this help?

This issue was explicitly addressed in CJSA/1080/2002:

14. As to the first of those consequences, I entirely accept Mr Neville’s argument that it is not reasonable to expect a claimant to sign on once she has been told that her claim for benefit has been unsuccessful.  Even if he is right that the claimant was actually entitled to benefit in the second week of her claim, I do not see how the claimant could have been expected to realise that, when she had been told that it was her income that disentitled her from benefit and she was still receiving income each week.  It is not reasonable, as Mr Willman suggests it is, to assume that a claimant who has been told that attendance is necessary to obtain Class 1 credits will in fact attend.  The claimant may not wish to claim such credits and, indeed, may not be able to do so if his or her earnings in the contribution year already exceed 52 times the lower earnings limit (see regulation 3 of the Social Security (Credits) Regulations 1975).

15. However, the reason that I go further than Mr Neville and hold that the requirement to sign on had lapsed altogether in relation to jobseeker’s allowance is that the requirement had lost its purpose.  Attendance is required to enable a claimant to prove continued entitlement to jobseeker’s allowance.  It is, as the claimant pointed out, unnecessary to sign on for jobseeker’s allowance purposes if there is no entitlement to jobseeker’s allowance. Furthermore, the consequence of a failure to attend and sign a declaration as required is that entitlement ceases under regulation 25 of the 1996 Regulations.  If it has already been decided that the claimant has no entitlement, there is plainly no entitlement that can cease.

 

ikbikb
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LSD WB supervisor - Bury District CAB, Lancashire

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In addition also consider a complaint on maladministration of the claim. Your client was acting on the advice and instruction of the DWP which the Tribunal have found to be incorrect, erronious and unlawful. Your client could not have acted in any other way or have any other choice as the DWP ended her claim. It cost your client a financial loss.

HB Anorak
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I think we are at cross purposes here.  As I understand it the OP is asking whether it possible to retain worker status while going through the motions of signing on despite having already exhausted your JSA entitlement and failed GPOW.  In other words, can a period of JSA and a period of being registered as a jobseeker run consecutively, all the while retaining worker status?  Is that right?  If so, assuming DWP has dealt with the case correctly, I think the answer is no in principle.  Worker status is retained for six months if you worked for less than a year, and for six months then longer subject to GPOW if you worked at least a year.  You cannot prolong this by signing on if you are no longer serious about getting a job.  In such a case the claimant needs to dispute the GPOW failure on its merits as well as continuing to sign on and seek work [but see below for the possibility that DWP and the local authority take different views about GPOW, in which case at least HB might be paid]. 

People have referred above to cases where the requirement to sign on was not imposed to start with and could not be retrospectively imposed - this was the Elmi case where the court finds that the claimant was registered as a jobseeker by virtue of her HRT2 form and she was therefore able to claim IS as a worker with retained status.  I think the OP is asking about something different.

However, as noted above, there is a possibility the claimant could argue that she is on a St Prix style maternity break from her most recent work.  Also, DWP appears to have decided in October that she was signing on as a jobseeker entering the job market (in which case her 91 days had already been used up) rather than as a worker with retained status - in which case she has another six months.  Six months on JSA as worker with retained status is completely different from 91 days as a jobseeker.  And even if it takes time to challenge DWP’s JSA decision (and even if it ultimately fails) the local authority might take the view that she does retain worker status and award HB - nothing DWP has done is binding on them at all.

bristol_1
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Thanks all.
Yes HB Anorak is correct, that is the question I was asking - sorry my post wasn’t that clear.

But Simon and HB Anorak, you are saying if I am correct, that as she had previously worked for more than a year then she should have had 6 months retained worker status. Can this still apply where she has already had a gap between work with no JSA claim - ie in this case she had a gap between August 15 and June 16, after which she worked till Oct 16 - would she have ‘used up’ her 6 months retained worker status already in the previous gap where she wasn’t working?

The CPAG BfM book simply says - if you have already worked for a year in the UK then you have retained worker status for 6 months before GPOW, it’s not clear to me if you can use this one year of work at any time when you are involuntarily undemployed, to start the 6 months from the start again?

And yes, if we can get 6 months of retained worker status from end of work on 07/10/16 then she will fall into a possible St Prix period as the due date for her pregnancy is 17/03/17.