Here is what happened - I went to my Signing On Day which was 29th April and found that I had missed a meeting with my Personal Advisor, so during my signing on the advisor said because I had missed an Interview with my Personal Advisor my claim had to go to a Decision Maker, so she wrote down on the computer why I had missed the Interview, and sent it to the people who make the decisions. During this time my appointment was rescheduled with my Personal Advisor for Tuesday 30th April. When I attended my Interview on the Tuesday, my Personal Advisor checked my file to see if a decision had been made yet, and less than 24hrs had gone by and I had been Sanctioned!!

Firstly it was told to me verbally as I was attending my Advisor meeting at the time and she checked on my file to see if a decision had been made yet. Then a few days later I received a letter stating that I can not be paid Jobseekers Allowance from 30th april 2013. The letter states "that I failed to attend this interview & that you did not have sufficiently good reasons for doing so". During the meeting with my Advisor she told me I should fill in a Reconsideration Form, and fill out as much information as possible stating why I should not be sanctioned, which I did, and found out on Monday that the sanction was still in place, the decision had not been dropped. So now I await a letter coming from the Jobcentre giving me the reasons as to why it was not dropped…..

When I first found out I had been sanctioned, I asked the Jobcentre what steps I needed to take to appeal against the sanction, and one of the advisors gave me a Reconsideration Form, and said to fill out as much information as possible stating why I should not be sanctioned. I thought the Reconsideration Form was an Appeal.

I was recently sanctioned for missing an Advisor Interview, I appealed against this decision because I knew nothing of this appointment, I had been given no notice at any of my previous meetings prior the date or given any paper work acknowledging this meeting when I last attended my signing on, or receiving anything through the post - But the Jobcentre had a record of posting a letter out to me which I never received! I explained in my appeal that recently we have had problems with our post either not turning up or going missing, and that we have taken this matter up with Royal Mail. I also mentioned that the Jobcentre has access to my Mobile Number, Email Address and also my Universal Jobmatch Account, so why is it not possible that they can not let clients know via this method instead of the useless Royal Mail method..... Or if it’s something important which it was, have the document recorded or signed for?? So my appointment was rescheduled with my advisor, during the interview she mentioned that she generally does not like to post Interview Letters out, and normally try to give the clients their Interview letters when it’s their Signing On day, by this method proving that the client has received the letter. I attended my signing on day as normal a few days ago and found that my appeal had been rejected, so basically I'm still sanctioned for 4 weeks. Is there anything else I can do towards my appeal? I feel that I have been unfairly treated and should not be Sanctioned!