Hi, myself and my partner have both been claiming income based JSA for a short while now.
We've always had the same person in our 'signing on sessions' and have never had any issues until today when we went to sign on.
We had a different person from before, and when examining our job search asked my partner if she had been using Universal Job Match.
She told them she hadn't as she had better luck finding more appropriate jobs elsewhere. Her job search sheet reflected this,
she has always applied for at least 3 jobs every week and had managed about 3 or 4 interviews with different employers over a 5 month period.
She told her that she would unfortunately have to refer our case and possibly have our benefits docked, just because she hadn't used Universal Job Match?
Is this right?
I can't for the life of me understand how this is fair.
We both apply for a combination of about 12 jobs in total every two weeks, and always check job sites daily
(such as Indeed, Reed etc. ones with better functionality than Job Match)
we put our reference numbers down and everything can be very easily traced and backed up if calls were made etc.
So why just because my partner hasn't used the Universal Job Match site would we have our money taken off us?
As long as we are applying for jobs and writing down the steps we are taking in detail to find work,
surely there shouldn't be an issue?
Or am I totally off the mark here?
Any help or advice is very much appreciated.
Henry.