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JSA sanctions - must be deliberate
Just looking at a case. Jobcentre staff’s actions must either be deliberate or completely stupid:
Single, male, long term JSA claimant, lives at home with father. Has several barriers to being employed.
Told by JCP adviser that he had to apply for a vacancy for a HGV driver. Client objected and refused as it would be pointless. and he was sanctioned. Previously he had been told by JCP staff that he had a “faultless” jobsearch record.
Here is the crunch: 1. Minimum age for driving large HGV lorries is 21. 2. Additional licence conditions and training apply in order to be a HGV driver; you can’t just use a car driving licence. 3. Client is aged 19. 4. Client does not have a driving licence for any type of vehicle.
Did he tell the adviser at the time he was told to apply? Advisers aren’t experts on job requirements, although I’d have thought HGV driver would be a common enough profession for the officer to know what restrictions there were on it - like needing an HGV licence, which even I know.
Yes he did point all this out but was told he had to apply in order to “tick the box” that he was applying for vacancies.
I had a similar case a while back. The client concerned had been sanctioned for not applying for a fork lift truck driver vacancy. He, too, had no driving licence (let alone a fork-lift licence).
He had also been accused of failing to apply for another job (a warehouseman post which involved a 5am start). The client’s JS agreement stipulated that he was willing to travel using public transport for up to 2 hours to get to work & back. I took great delight in pointing out in the sub I prepared for his appeal that for him to reach the place of work concerned by public transport he would actually have had to leave the previous day.
I did enjoy writing that sub…
Around here they go for the other end of the spectrum, rather than sanctioning for failing to apply for jobs which there’s no real prospect of claimants getting, they sanction for unrealistic jobsearch expectations - I’ve had one client sanctioned for wanting to be a HGV driver, with no driving license at all. And another for wanting to be an astronaut!
Around here they go for the other end of the spectrum, rather than sanctioning for failing to apply for jobs which there’s no real prospect of claimants getting, they sanction for unrealistic jobsearch expectations - I’ve had one client sanctioned for wanting to be a HGV driver, with no driving license at all. And another for wanting to be an astronaut!
Astronaut!! Now that’s class. Love it.
I had a case where my arguement was about the ‘best steps’. In their submission they quote CJSA/3146/2009 in which the Judge said of a previous case that the First Tier Tribunal focused on whether the appellant had met the requirements of the JSAG rather than on whether the steps he had taken meant that he was actively seeking work in the sense of giving him the best opportuntiy to find work. They focused on what he he had not done rather than what he had done. this is set out also in CJSA/1814/2007 which the Judge refer’s to.
Have a look at these two and you may have a good arguement.
The general consensus is that this will be overturned fully at mandatory reconsideration stage as an unreasonable use of a jobcentre direction, and that the job in question is not tailored to the needs of the claimant.
The JCP adviser damn well knows this, and will have sanctioned him to meet whatever target. There can be no other explanation. Why are these people unaccountable?
People say “Its ok, he can appeal”
Is this what we have come to?
Allowing human beings to treat others this way as not being seen as problematic because there just so happens to be some type of appeal process?
I would complain to JCP in the strongest possible terms here. Disgraceful
I have to say that I too think something is going wrong that can’t be resolved simply by MR/appeal case by case.
I dealt with a case recently in which a sanction was imposed because according to JC+ there were three (or on another page of their sub, four) jobs on Universal Jobmatch for which the client could have applied. They submitted that although they had seen these jobs on UJm, they could produce no details of them, so it came to a sanction imposed ‘because my mate says’. Evidence? Pah.
I can think of only one reason why this was done. And it will be done again and again.
Hi
Could some one post a copy of CJSA/3146/2009
Thanks
It is because so few jobseekers don’t appeal and don’t complain that the sanctions target regime has been able to take hold. Even those who don’t have language or health or other barriers to getting involved in an appeal or pursuing a complaint, don’t do so. I don’t know what proportion of people in general who get an adverse benefit decision, fail to exercise their appeal rights, but I’m guessing for jobseekers allowance it’s a smaller proportion than most.