jsa decision added to toolkit

interesting jsa decision just added to toolkit - CJSA/473/2003 - about need to supersede jsa award if terminating because jobseeker failed to sign on.

cheers ros

In the decision Judge Jacobs said “….section 8(2)(a) provides that once a decision is made on a claim, it ceases to subsist.  So there is no claim left to close.  It is high time the Secretary of State changed both the procedure followed and the language used”.

Quite!  I have been banging on about this for years.  Will the Department listen to Mr Jacobs?  Or is that the sound of hell freezing over I hear.

The “termination v supersession (or revision)” issue is an area of regular contention with many LAs in the context of cases of alleged fraud related offences.

Time after time, LAs just “close” claims/awards without following the law.  In my experience, many LAs simply do not understand the distinction between a claim and an award, nor the distinction between termination and supersession.

As an aside, in law, a termination is a supersession.  But, a supersession in the form of termination can’t apply unless the hoops for suspension and/or information requests have been explicitly followed.  For completeness, a failure to correctly terminate an award doesn’t preclude the LA from undertaking a “normal” supersession instead, including one by inference (subject to the inference being reasonable).

Amongst a growing number of CDs/UTDs on the above issues, CH/2555/2007 & CH/2995/2006 make interesting reading (er, if you’re that way inclined….).