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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Conditionality and sanctions  →  Thread

Government ‘Way to Work’ rule change gives UC claimants no more than 4 weeks to search for work in their existing field

AOReillyPLP
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Specialist Support Hub, Public Law Project (London)

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Joined: 23 November 2021

PLP is concerned about the Government’s ‘Way to Work’ rule change, which gives UC claimants no more than 4 weeks to search for work in their existing field. We think it will hurt freelancers (such as those in the creative industries). It increases the risk that more people will be sanctioned a lot sooner. Before the change, UC claimants had up to 3 months to look for work in their chosen profession.

The regulations implementing the change were made on 7 February 2022, without any prior consultation with the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC). The approach taken has been criticised as an abuse of the ‘urgency’ procedure by the SSAC, as well as a number of parliamentary committees. 

It may be possible to challenge the regulations in Court by judicial review and we are ready to work with anyone worried about how the rule impacts them.

Please spread awareness among your network and any clients who may be negatively impacted and share our contact details .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

You can also tweet/retweet about the issue. Here is our latest tweet: https://twitter.com/publiclawprojct/status/1511362278389657601

 

UB40
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Debt and Welfare Advice, Community Money Advice, Launceston

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Here is some information regarding the previous regime, if the Rightsnet rules regarding attachment pixels allow me.

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Andyp5 Citizens Advice Bridport & District
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Citizens Advice Bridport & District

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UB40 - 13 April 2022 08:58 AM

Here is some information regarding the previous regime, if the Rightsnet rules regarding attachment pixels allow me.

Hi UB40,

I’m curious about job centre training. Do you know whether it is across the board, in terms of delivery and take up, or does provision, emphasis and attendance vary from job centre to job centre; district to district, and region to region?

On the face of it I know its a silly question, because if the question was applied to the advice World, then the obvious answer would be of course it does.

But I can’t help my curiosity shaped by contrasting etc etc.

Andy

 

 

 

UB40
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Debt and Welfare Advice, Community Money Advice, Launceston

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Joined: 29 April 2021

Hi Andy, As you can see there is a lot of discretion on the part of the Work Coach. Quite how much I was surprised by the Powerpoint presentation which came from the Sanctions team of DMs.
I have in the past known a claimant to successfully get a MR where a ” permitted period ” was initially refused by a work coach.
There are some general conditions though such as the claimant needs to have worked in their trade/profession for at least 2 years.
Hence a graduate on departing University is never given a permitted period ( unless he/she had previously completed the 2 years ).