Hi, I’m new here.

Can anyone answer these questions?

1) Is all your JSA stopped when you are sanctioned, or is only a percentage of it stopped?

2) If after being sanctioned you go on hardship payments, do you still have to be available for work?

3) And if you do still have to be available for work, can you be further sanctioned while on hardship payments?

I’ve just started getting JSA and have not been sanctioned, but the above questions have occurred to me.

1) Is all your JSA stopped when you are sanctioned, or is only a percentage of it stopped? All then a Percentage

2) If after being sanctioned you go on hardship payments, do you still have to be available for work? Yes

3) And if you do still have to be available for work, can you be further sanctioned while on hardship payments? Yes

You can also receive multiple sanctions which then make it even more difficult to sustain job searching efforts thus ensuring your trapped in the system.

So do not get a sanction is my best advice, if you do, fight it even if you think you might lose, you might be surprised, record every conversation if you can.

Sad times indeed when folk have to know how to protect themselves and survive a punitive benefit system that is supposed to be a safety net, a safety net they have contributed towards.

Why do folk still support MPs that support these abusive practices, does the whole electorate really believe the lies that all this is for the benefit of the nation, really ?

People are dying of cold,hunger, depression is now the norm and the biggest killer of men 45 years and younger in the UK is suicide.

Are we a nation of self harmer's ? is this why we sit back tut and carry on with our lives ?

Rant over off topic sorry.

Thanks for your reply. Can you explain your answer to question one a bit more? Are you saying it is all stopped or just a percentage—surely it can’t be both?

Sorry to confuse,

for the first 2 weeks you will lose the whole amount.

Then you a get reduced amount called hardship payments.

Unless you or your family are considered vulnerable

(e.g. you’re pregnant, sick or looking after children)

you should be able to get a hardship payment in place of your next benefit payment.

Otherwise you’ll have to wait for two weeks.

if you’re on JSA or ESA you do not have to pay back the hardship payment but you will have to pay it back if you’re on Universal Credit.

Do you get hardship payments automatically after the two week period or do you have to apply for them?

Do you get hardship payments automatically after the two week period or do you have to apply for them?

You have to apply for them.

Why were you sanctioned ? Have you asked for mandatory reconsideration ? Go to Gov.uk, how to challenge a benefit decision and think about grounds. Was the sanction fair based on the information DWP had to apply the sanction?

I've not been sanctioned, but wanted to know in case I ever am.

I've not been sanctioned, but wanted to know in case I ever am.

Very wise thing to do, but more impotently is understanding how to avoid receiving a sanction in the first place.

Do not let those who think they can run you ragged get a grip on your life or once you are caught up in the DWP circus finding real sustainable work will slowly evaporate as you spend the majority of you're time ticking boxes for them and wasting valuable time and energy trying to fill your unrealistic quota of a million job application per fortnight.

Useless courses and schemes will follow and the endless phone calls, emails and remote control pressure if you agree to open a universal job match account.

Tips:

Record everything secretly if possible it is lawful to do so.

Refuse to open a Universal jobmatch you do not give your consent for a work coach to gain access nor do you agree to the behaviour policy

Ask for you your telephone and email address to be removed from their and partner systems. consent

Make sure you negotiate your claimant commitment taking your circumstances into account, never agree to applying for X jobs per week.

Anything you are asked to do that you would rather not then it needs to be in writing in the correct format as a Jobseekers direction or mandatory notification.

Be mindful they will produce a fake letter at times in the hope you will cave in, make sure it is the correct format.

And also to be considered actively seeking work and fulfilling your work search requirements 3 step per week is the law, less in some circumstances, you do not have to do any or all the steps outlined in your claimant commitment.

A step could be looking in shop window, asking family and friends, speculative phone calls and speculative applications.

Those steps are not possible to evidence unless you make a log of when and where, they should accept your uncorroborated evidence unless it is contradictory or highly improbable.

If you account for steps that can be evidenced such as responses to applications etc make sure you can provide screenshots if a doubt is raised, only when a doubt is raised will evidence be required.

Tell them as little as possible to be considered actively seeking employment anything else is your business.

You may have to keep reminding your work coach your on JSA not universal credit !

While the above post may be correct it wouldn't necessarily stop them from sanctioning you - and then you would have to go through the trouble of getting it overturned. If they won't do this within their own process this could mean tribunal.

I think it's generally pretty bad advice to make their life difficult for the sake of it when you've just started claiming.

In terms of hardship there's no guarantee you would be granted them, you have to apply constantly and they will ask a lot of personal things. As mentioned above you are not excused from anything while sanctioned and it would all just escalate if you did not do things.

A lot will depend on your work coach. Try to have a decent relationship with them. Go to your appointments, record some job search (even if it's on paper) and discuss what you are doing to look for work with them. You can go a long way to preventing them trying to get you to do things if you instead tell them what you are planning to do each week. You will also make their job far easier and they will like you. Generally just be the good customer.

I'm assuming here you do want a job and just want to avoid as much hassle as possible - above is the safest way. They should have no reason to look at things any closer for a good while.

While the above post may be correct it wouldn't necessarily stop them from sanctioning you - and then you would have to go through the trouble of getting it overturned. If they won't do this within their own process this could mean tribunal.

 

I think it's generally pretty bad advice to make their life difficult for the sake of it when you've just started claiming.

 

In terms of hardship there's no guarantee you would be granted them, you have to apply constantly and they will ask a lot of personal things. As mentioned above you are not excused from anything while sanctioned and it would all just escalate if you did not do things.

 

A lot will depend on your work coach. Try to have a decent relationship with them. Go to your appointments, record some job search (even if it's on paper) and discuss what you are doing to look for work with them. You can go a long way to preventing them trying to get you to do things if you instead tell them what you are planning to do each week. You will also make their job far easier and they will like you. Generally just be the good customer.

 

I'm assuming here you do want a job and just want to avoid as much hassle as possible - above is the safest way. They should have no reason to look at things any closer for a good while.

If you think telling your work coach how many thousands of hoops you jump through each week to find employment will make them back off your very much deluded.

I see people who take the same approach you outline and find themselves on work experience, sector based work academies, useless schemes and courses, volunteering, universal jobmatch and no peace whatsoever.

And generally it is those who get doubts raised when the hundred applications they proudly show are brought into question, everything is geared towards sanctioning folk not helping.

Who cares if they like you or not, why should that matter, you say roll over and accept whatever they throw at you, so you make their job easier ?

And then what would you advise if you do have an issue ? your either too gripped with fear to stand up for yourself assuming they can make life more difficult for you, or you have dug yourself so deep there is no getting out.

The state is waging a war on the vulnerable,disadvantaged,ill,disabled and working classes and you propose surrender !!!

Rights are there to be used not ignored.

Yes it takes some fighting when you come across ignorant poorly trained work coaches whose sole duty is secure off flow payments by any means at their disposal. But rather that than the alternative.

Thanks for all your replies.

The whole thing seems needlessly complex. Presumably to act as a disincentive for people to want to claim JSA or to make them want to voluntary stop claiming it and move back in with their parents if they are young enough to do so.

I’ve just come across a thing called Sector Based Work Academies. What are they? Are they like the notorious Work Programmes of a few years ago?