Backdated JSA refused.

Have a situation that I have been in before although the response from the DWP is a first.

Client, Swedish, wrongly told to claim Income Support and when decision no RTR made advised her to claim IBJSA and seek backdating. The appeal lapsed as agreed clients was misadvised, which is how these appeals have worked for me in the past, which is approximately 15.

However, in this case the section will not pay as they say client did not for the period of backdating meet the labour market conditions. So on one hand they accept she could not have claimed earlier because she was given the wrong advice but the other that despite that advice she did meet the conditions of a benefit she did not know she had to claim?

Any hints on this one would be appreciated but at the moment it looks like a second appeal now needs to be submitted. Idiocy.

If your client could not fulfill the labour market conditions then her “good cause” is irrelevant, as mentioned above.

I had a case a while ago where the EU client wrongly advised - put in a claim for compensation and the refusal of her backdated claim for JSA was reviewed, without much reason as she did not fulfill the labour market conditions. I think the special payments unit prefer backdating rather than compensation wherever possible.

And for completeness, the concept of good cause for DWP benefits was abolished many moons ago and replaced with a list of statutory criteria contained in reg 19 of the Claims and Payments Regs, of which being given information which led one to believe that a claim for benefit would not succeed is one.  However, there is conflicting case law on what exactly being “given information” actually means.