Sillygirl1 ~ The job grant or one off payment of £100 or £250, depending on your circumstances, is not a local thing. The same rules apply anywhere you sign regardless. You do have to be signing for 6 months continuous to qualify. Bear in mind that if yOu have had a sanction this will affect it.

Hi bbest,

 

If you were to find yourself sanctioned (for whatever reason) then you can put in a claim for hardship payments due to no other income, depending on whether you are currently on JSA (CB) you have to put in a claim for JSA (IB) and then apply for the hardship payments on the grounds of having no other income and, that by not receiving hardship payments you would not be able to access basic needs such as food, heat and energy and clothing (or something like that!). If you are then allocated hardship payments you would receive 60% of the usual amount of JSA - around £40:50 a week for the length of your sanction - and you have to continue going in and signing on as usual during the sanction period.

 

Feebee_71

Short term sanctions do not qualify for hardship payments.

You don't actually work for your benefit whilst on the Work programme. However, the provider can ask you to attend for up to 30 hours a week depending on what level of support they think you need from them.

In our area the Flexible Support Fund has been fairly generous and paid for all sorts. Obviously it is not used willy nilly, for instance if you already have smart trousers from a previous job fairly recently you wouldn't get help for a new pair. But on the other hand if you haven't worked for a while/put on weight and they no longer fit, then you would get help. Basically, all things are considered if you have a firm job offer (within reason) and if you don't have a particular ticket/card, eg CSCS card/digital tacho, then our JCP will reimburse you.

If you were due to sign on 19th, regardless whether you attended the JCP afterwards or not, your last payment date will be the 5th, the last time you signed.

As an added note (from a JCP keyboard rattler as Dizzynita calls us ) you are allowed 2 separate periods of sickness, each up to 14 days. If for example your date of claim was 01.10.10, you are allowed 2 periods of sickness between 01.10.10 and 30.09.11. Anything longer than 14 days, then you need to make a claim for ESA.

Am I correct in saying you did initiate a phone call to make an ESA claim? If so, at the point of the phone call your JSA claim would have been closed.

You need to give reason why there were no suitable vacancies. Anyone can say there was nothing suitable. If JCP were to check, it could be there was a vacancy that matched your JSAG but possibly you don't have a particular skill or qualification that matches the job description.

I am constantly amazed that people continue to provide a poor job search diary, then bitch and moan when they are referred to a decision maker and consequently incur a sanction. Undertake just the minimum of activities required and no doubt you will take longer to find employment, then someone who far exceeds the amount required.