Forum Home → Discussion → Income support, JSA and tax credits → Thread
Sanctions Sanctions Bloody Sanctions!
I am helping a client of mine appeal a load of stupid JSA sanctions and i was wondering if i could ask for a few pointers.
My client is a lone parent, who claimed JSA when her child turned 5 a few months ago.
Her eldest child also goes to school, and she has to take her there at 8.55am and pick her up at 3.00pm
When they gave her the signing on times she was told she had to be at the Jobcentre at 9am.
She said she couldnt get there until about 9.30am as she has to take the kids to school.
She was told that wasnt their problem, there was no discretion and if she couldnt get there on time they would sanction her benefit.
As she was always a bit late so they sanctioned her for 8 weeks, 2 weeks and another 8 weeks. After the second sanction they put her on twice a day signing, at 9.05 and 3.10 pm for 33 consecutive days, knowing damned well thats when she has to pick the kids up at school.
She also has literacy issues and they gave her another sanction as the jobcentre plus adviser couldnt read her writing. Jesus!
They have now told her she should sign off “for a bit” and make a new claim. Completely bullied, and now doesnt have the confidence or fight to make a new claim.
As well as writing an appeal letter i also will be writing a complaint letter, however i was wanting a few pointers as to what should be in the complaint, as i was under the impression that flexibility must be part of the jobseekers agreement if caring responsibilities exist. Jobcentre adviser flatly refused to acknowledge this in any way shape or form.
They have set her up to fail, and have done so spectacularly.
Any regs or DWP directions i can quote??
Take a look here to start with you may find something useful
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch34.pdf
Also if you are going to make a complaint you can do so to the district manager who you can find here:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/jcp-district-managers.pdf
Also Group Partnership Managers who are effectively Regional Managers see here:
You might want to consider threatening them with bringing a claim against them for the civil wrong of misfeasance in public office. In Three Rivers v Bank of England (HL) 2000 the court stated that “the case law reveals two different forms of liability for misfeasance in public office. First there is the case of targeted malice by a public officer i.e. conduct specifically intended to injure a person or persons. This type of case involves bad faith in the sense of the exercise of public power for an improper or ulterior motive. The second form is where a public officer acts knowing that he has no power to do the act complained of and that the act will probably injure the plaintiff. It involves bad faith inasmuch as the public officer does not have an honest belief that his act is lawful”
And further on continues “reckless indifference to consequences is as blameworthy as deliberately seeking such consequences. It can therefore now be regarded as settled law that an act performed in reckless indifference as to the outcome is sufficient to ground the tort in its second form”.
Discussed here.
Your description of this case is consistent with what many advisers feel are deliberate attempts by some DWP staff to set up claimants to fail. It’s worth making a detailed note about what was said by whom about the signing on times and school drop-off and pick-up arrangements. Also worth a subject access request under the Data Protection Act.
As Nevip says, this may be a case of misfeasance, which if it causes harm, can also be a criminal offence.
There is nothing in the law which says that particular claimants must sign on at particular times or days, the timing and frequency is an administrative arrangement, so the DWP has discretion about when people sign on. Therefore, they must be flexible about this and take account of personal circumstances. In this case, it is also arguable that by insisting on a signing on times she cannot make as a lone parent, that there may be some sex discrimination (also actionable).
Regulation 23 JSA Regs clearly sets out the discretion and does not specify who shall sign on at specific times. “A claimant shall attend at such place and at such time as an employment officer may specify by a notification which is given or sent to the claimant and which may be in writing, by telephone or by electronic means”.
Before making a complaint to JCP, it would be worth getting some advice from a lawyer specialising in discrimination and misfeasance issues.
How else could targets be made for sanctions? If that is indeed what is being done. There would need to be a scheme of setting people up to fail going on.
Even if there are no formal targets as such, we do know that the DWP’s organisational culture has shifted to a more punitive stance as a result of Ministers’ views. All of us have heard and heard of appalling attitudes towards claimants among some DWP and LA staff (and yes there are very many others who do not have such attitudes).
Sadly there are also some people who take this to extremes and get perverted pleasure in getting people sanctioned: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/job-agent-boasted-on-twitter-about-halting-suckers-benefits-8758207.html
While this was a private sector employee, they could just as easily have been working for DWP or a Work Programme provider; people like this have a habit of getting into jobs where they have power over others.
While one hopes that this is rare and it would never be officially supported, one thing life has taught me is that people are capable of extremes of good and bad behaviour and that even well-educated, sane, nice people will be among the latter.
On a connected theme, did anyone see Benefits Britain 1949 on Channel 4 last night?
The Public Law Project and Howells solicitors (Sheffield) both have legal aid contracts for discrimination and judicial review claims. If you send either of them an outline of the client’s case, they can give you an opinion on whether a claim on either ground is feasible. If a discrimination claim is possible, the DWP could get a court order to pay the client compensation.
If the DWP get several such claims, it might encourage their managers and staff to be less bloody minded in their treatment of claimants. It worries me that I am seeing reports of the rate of sanctions going up, but I am not seeing a corresponding increase in clients coming to my CAB to complain or appeal about sanctions. When the conditions for claiming ESA became more restricted, I did see a corresponding increase in ESA claimants asking how to appeal. So, I’m wondering what’s going on with JSA claimants. It is possible that, on a few occasions, they go to an advice centre and get inadequate advice, eg, a volunteer who doesn’t know that sanctions can be appealed. It could be that the loss of legal aid for ordinary benefits cases means that some places no longer have the specialist advisers to deal with such cases. But I’m thinking that the real problem is that most JSA claimants are simply not coming for advice. Could this be because the jobcentres are picking on the most vulnerable people, who have no idea that they can go somewhere to get advice?
I spoke to a guy this morning (no soft touch) who is being messed around something rotten, being bounced from pillar to post, having his signing on time constantly changed and being spoken to like a child. He told me that both jobcentre staff and provider staff keep using terms like “mandatory” and “automatic sanctions”. He told me that one member of staff of a private contractor said “I’m going to sanction you”. Note the use of the word I’m.
One of the reasons for this problem is the removal of benefit administration from the jobcentres and into BC’s. Thus jobcentre staff tend not to have any knowledge of the regulations and thus of the ‘reasonableness’ provisions in those regulations and simply work from a script handed down by senior management which simply describes the administrative process and the consequences for failure to comply. This is one of the reasons many sanctions are not challenged as many claimants are led to believe by the uninformed that they, absolutely, have to do as they’re told and that they have no avenue of redress. This is one of the ways administration becomes king, binding the minds of the unthinking and crushing the desire to be helpful.
I agree, but another factor which I believe puts clients off challenging saction decisions is that they know it will take months and months for the appeal to be dealt with. Clients under a JSA disallowance are far more concerned with the immediate priorities (eating, finding money to cover utilities, rent, etc) and generally have little time or energy to lodge an appeal. Sad, but true I think (and something that I suspect the government is both well aware of and planned for).
I suspect claimants only appeal when it’s for a reasonably long time.
And I agree with the comment that they may not appeal because they know it will take months to be dealt with. I’ve got an outstanding JSA sanction appeal which has been 9 months and counting with DWP in a pile waiting to dealt with. After going through the local MP we’ve been advised that it’s awaiting a decision / guidance / something following the Reilly judgement. Which is all well and good (not really!) - but only for a 4 week period of the 6 month sanction we appealed. I had to e-mail the MP back and politely tell him that I think the DWP had missed the point…..
I find that Jobcentre plus can be very selective regarding who they sanction. They are too cowardly to sanction people who may kick off and get aggressive. They tend to pick on people with low confidence, low self esteem, learning difficulties and the main one : people who still live with their parents.
Its as if they have gauged who will appeal and challenge, and who wont, and then sanction accordingly.
Most young people who come to our project who have been sanctioned genuinely arent bothered about their sanction as their parents will still ensure a roof over their heads and food on their plate. Its very difficult to get young folk to appeal. Im not sure if thats down to apathy or the fact that the sanction should actually stand in the first place due to non compliance.
One problem we have then is young folk signing off, not realising how it can affect non dep deductions with their parents HB claims.
I’m not convinced that people are deterred from appealing a sanction by the amount of time it takes to get a hearing. After all you go without the money whether you appeal or not. I think that Benefits adviser puts forward more cogent reasons; namely, it tends to be the vulnerable or those who can afford to absorb the sanction who don’t appeal. If you are in neither of these groups you are more likely to appeal or ask for a review because you believe it’s the right thing to do and are still bloody minded enough not to give in. This group maybe a dwindling minority but it still exists. And, the best of the rest, as I indicated earlier, have just been so overwhelmed by DWP procedures that they don’t know where to turn.
My part of the country is in a UC pilot area, and so claimant commitments, instead of jobseekers agreements, are being applied to JSA claimants as well as UC claimants. We have seen a claimant commitment this past week, which is clearly designed to set up the claimant to fail. The claimant is similar to benefitadviser’s claimant in the original post - a single parent with children. Myself and a colleague have studied the relevant bits of the Jobseekers Act 1995 as amended, the Welfare Reform Act, the Jobseekers regulations 2013, and the current DM’s guidance, and have found that the claimant commitment is so at odds with the JSA regulations (and the DM’s guidance) that it is unlawful.
The parent has been told she must be available for job interviews and to take up a job “immediately” - but people with caring responsibilities are respectively allowed to be available at 48 hours notice and one month’s notice for these things.
She has been told she must be available for job of 30 hours per week, covering times when she has to take the children to school, and collect them from school - this is impractical, and the regs allow for people to be available for part time work if their circumstances justify it.
She has to spend 35 hours per week seeking work - unfortunately this pernicious piece of impractical idiocy is specifically written into one of the new JSA regs. But “deductions” are taken from the 35 hours for people with caring responsibilities (and people who do voluntary work).
She has been told she must look for job vacancies in each of four websites (including the universal jobmatch one) every day, seven days a week - this is not defined in the regs, it comes under the Secretary of State’s (aka jobcentre official’s) discretion as to what goes into a claimant commitment. But such a rigid requirement is setting up the claimant to fail in itself. It is also a time wasting exercise as websites don’t update with enough new jobs to be worth looking at every single day. The best ones are worth looking at every third day, the worst once a week - I speak from recent experience of job hunting.
She is required to speak to family and friends about possible job vacancies every day, seven days a week - get real! Besides which, all her relatives live abroad, so they are 1. unlikely to be in touch with the British job market and 2. who pays her phone bill if she phones them every day?
She has also been told she must create an account on Universal Jobmatch, put her CV on it, and allow the JC adviser access to her account so she can check she has done it. According to a copy of a FoI request reply I have read, job centre are specifically told they can’t insist on access to claimant’s website accounts because this is a breach of the Data Protection Act.
Overall, the CC requires her to take 43 steps per week to look for work - the current JSA regulations still only require claimants to take “2 or more” steps per week.
The client’s description of the job centre adviser’s behaviour towards her suggests she drew up this claimant commitment with malicious intent, knowing it would trip her up at some point.
My colleague has drafted a practical claimant commitment that the client can stick to, takes account of her caring responsibilities, requires her to take a minimum of 10 steps per week, and allows her to pursue work that she has a chance of getting, and has emailed it to the job centre adviser. If the JC adviser doesn’t like it, according to the regs, she has to refer it to a DM, who must make a decision whether to alter the claimant commitment within 14 days. As far as we understand the regs, the claimant then has the right to appeal a refusal to change the claimant commitment. But meanwhile she is stuck with the original agreement, which is deliberately set up to be impossible to keep to.
We might have to advise the client to do more than appeal (such as formal complaint against the JC adviser) if she doesn’t get her claimant commitment revised, to avoid being sanctioned.
I describe all this by way of warning to other advisers, as “claimant commitments” are being introduced in more job centres this month, and you may find your own clients being set up for sanctions in this way. You too may find it most useful to study the JSA regulations and DM’s guide!
Has anyone heard about, or tried to take action against the JC+ advisers personally under misfeance by a public official?
Some of their actions border on criminality in my opinion
Thanks Tony. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)