It will be once I've sent the medical report, then hopefully it will be the end of it

I received a reply from the Special Payment Team today, and I have been awarded £385.50 £285.50 being the court costs incurred, and £100 consolatory award (because as I said from the beginning, the court costs came about because the Jobcentre didn't forward my HB/CTB claim to the LHA) Although it is better than nothing, £100 for 2 years of grief doesn't seem enough, I probably spent that much on phone calls to DWP. The letter says that if medical evidence can be provided, a further payment for severe distress can be considered, so next step is to get medical report from my doctor. They must have already come to this decision before emailing the decision maker the info provided by ErikaPNP. But after all this I still won, woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the advice, I don't know why citizens advice didn't tell me about this. When I first applied, I had to provide them with information of my student loan/grant via notification letters off the student loans company, so they certainly knew about the loan/grant. I have emailed the decision maker and provided her with this information, but knowing her, she will find some way around it, I'll let you know what happens.

4 months later and it's still not sorted. The Specialist Decision Maker keeps requesting information on dates and copies of letters, and each time I've provided her with what she asked for, she say's that it's not enough, and requests something else. She is now saying that I may have to pay back the JSA from 2 years ago. So at the end of the day, it's double maladministration, the first being my original JSA claim going missing, and the second being that my student loan income should have been taken into account in the first place. Surely they can't put me through the stress of 2 years of appeals and tribunals, only to say that it was all for nothing, as I may not have been entitled to JSA in the first place. She is also saying that I can't claim the court costs off them either, even though the fault still lies with the DWP for not even forwarding the housing/tax benefit claim to the LHA, causing me to be sent to court. I don't know what to do about it all, the citizens advice advisor isn't helpful at all :/

I have only been unemployed since Feb/March this year, and I'm not even on the work programme, so why am I not allowed to just put "no suitable vacancies"?

You can still apply for 5 jobs a week, once u have applied for the jobs you know you can do, bump up the number a bit by applying for jobs you know you cant do, the only criteria is to apply for jobs, doesnt say you cant apply for jobs you are not qualified/experienced for, play therm at their own game. I'm not saying this for people to avaid getting a job, just to bump up the number a bit AFTER you have applied for the jobs you're capable of doing, because some weeks it's impossible to meet the criteria. I've been told that I cant just put "no suitable vacancies" anymore, but I also have to put an example of a vacancy I could not apply for, which is ridiculous, because I end up putting stuff like "not a qualified doctor"/"not a qualified teacher" ect. Has anyone else been told they have to do this?

UPDATE: Decision maker called me yesterday, and explained why it was taking so long to come to a deciosion. They are now saying that they didn't take in to account my student loan/grant when I applied for JSA (which I know isnt true because I had to provide my student finance notification letters). She wants evidence of how much student finance I have to pay back (due to overpayment frm leaving uni early), when they first contacted me regarding the overpayment, and whether it was a student loan of maintenance grant I have to pay back, but I'm just wary about providing it, whether it will be used to my advantage or not, but knowing DWP, they will try and use it against me somehow. I was just wondering if anybody knows why they need this info, and how could it be used against me, and whether I should send it in or not?

Well done, don't you just love justice Hope all goes well for you in the end

Just the court costs I think, I'll have to check. Luckily I had an interest free student overdraft I could use, and help from family. I suppose I could claim for the potential loss of interest, I'll mention it to the decision maker, I'm not too fussed about that though.

Update: Received call today from DWP, think she said she was the "decision maker" or something, she was friendly and apologised for all that has happened regarding my JSA claim. In my complaint against the jobcentre, I asked to get payments for the court fees incurred, and any financial redress that they may offer for being put through the worst year of my life. The lady on the phone seemed sympathetic, and asked that I send her the letters with the court costs, evidence of any other costs incurred, and the amount that I see as reasonable to the distress caused. So the question now is what amount do I think is reasonable? What is reasonable in a case like this? I don't want to ask too little, and I don't want to ask too much, any suggestions?

Got my JSA backdated payment yesterday (£561) , and the letter to say that the JSA for period 14/01/10 to 14/03/10 was allowed in full. Going to contact my LHA with all the details of the case, including the signed form proving that I made a claim for HB/CTB on 14/01/10, so hopefully I will get that backdated too. Still waiting to hear from the complaint I made to DWP. My advice to anyone would be to keep every single letter the DWP/LHA send you, because without which I would not have won my tribunals

Sorry, I forgot to mention what happened with my HB/CTB. When I applied for JSA, they asked if I wanted to claim HB/CTB at the same time, which I said yes to, so I assumed that the HB/CTB would automatically be sent to the local housing authority. When I saw that I had no notification of whether or not I was receiving HB/CTB, I contacted my LHA who advised me to give it a bit more time, so I gave it a few weeks and contacted them again, they said they still had not received a HB/CTB from the jobcentre, so I had to go in to my LHA and fill out the application forms myself. Again, I tried to get it backdated, but was refused on grounds that I should have applied sooner, so had to go through the appeals process, and eventually to another tribunal, I provided signed evidence of the HB/CTB page I filled out when I applied for JSA, so it was the duty of DWP to forward that HB/CTB application to my LHA, they did not. The judge found in my favour, and I managed to get my HB/CTB backdated, but only from the point where I had to make the HB/CTB application myself. I am waiting on a letter from DWP to take to the LHA, to show that my JSA claim will be backdated fully, but of course they are taking their time in sending this. Thanks for the reply and the link, I have already made an informal complaint to my local jobcentre, which I'm still waiting for a reply. I'll send my case details directly to DWP and see what happens. Thanks

Yep, that's what helped me get the 1st tribunal hearing adjurned.

To cut a very long story short..... I left uni last year due to depression, applied for JSA, but they required an official letter from the uni to confirm I had left the course, which took longer than expected, nearly 2 months, by which time my claim had been closed. The Jobcentre/DWP knew I was having trouble getting the uni letter, and they said that as long as I kept them up to date with what's going on, then the claim would remain open. So I phoned the Benefits Delivery Centre once a week like they said. I received the course withdrawal confirmation letter and forwarded it on to the BDC, I contacted the BDC the same day and told them I had sent it to them. I waited a few days then phoned again, where I was informed that my claim had been closed a few weeks earlier. So I had to make a new claim, and apply for it to get backdated 2 months, the backdating was refused. They claimed that I had not made the previous JSA claim as there was no record of it on the system, even though I was signing on every fortnight for those 2 months, and even attended a back to work session. I went through the appeals process, and attended 3 tribunals. It had to be adjourned because the evidence I showed the judge (letters from DWP, signing on booklet, DWP records etc) proved that I did make a previous claim, so the judge told the DWP to change their response, which they finally changed to "not providing uni letter in due time". The 3rd tribunal lasted only 10 minutes, where the judge found in my favour, and the decision notice says ".....the Respondent (DWP) acted inappropriately in closing that claim before that information was received..." The DWP received this decision over a month ago. I had no income whatsoever for those 2 months, so fell behind on rent/council tax, which I had to go to court for each one, I'm still paying off the court costs. I had to get in to debt to pay the outstanding rent/tax, I was threatened with eviction letters and was basically told by the DWP that I did not make the previous claim, that basically I was making it all up. My depression got worse and had to go on medication because I started to self harm. So I was just wondering if this is a case of maladministration? As the time for information to be provided for a JSA claim is extended when that information has to come from a 3rd party, not to mention that I kept them informed weekly. It seems to me that someone closed my claim when they shouldn't have done, then tried to hide and deny all evidence of it. Also, would I be able to claim the court costs off them? (nearly £300) As the whole court thing was a direct result of them "inappropriately" closing my claim. And could I get a solicitor involved to claim some kind of compensation? Chris