I was unable to attend an interview for a job will UC sanction me?

OR as a grown up with responsibilities you ask if you need to come now or whether your child will be Ok for an hour or so.
I ahve had to go and get my child when they were ill and before I could I had to make some work related arrangements and drive for an hour to get to school.
Not all calls from school to collect your child are life and death

Good grief

If applying for school jobs, you now need to hope that you aren't effectively blacklisted as heads to talk to each other. Someone who doesn't show for interviews and doesn't phone is not going to be a prime candidate.

And this is why no one wants to hire mothers, because at any time they could just need to leave something important because their kid feels sick.

Unless she needed urgent medical treatment, I would have continued to the interview and collected her after that. Working parents don’t always work close to their child’s schools - schools understand there are delays

Of course you should have telephoned the school straight away asking for the interview to be rescheduled. Just not turning up for the interview and not contacting the employer is not acceptable. Call them / email them straight away to apologise, explain and request the opportunity to reschedule. At least then they can tell your Work Coach you made contact. When you mention asking the school to contact your DC’s father, is there a reason you cannot do that, e.g. DV? I hope your DC gets better soon.

Ah now, stop being so reasonable Sooty
That would be a sensible thing to do.... if you had planned to go to the interview.

@GreenSedan I'm sorry but if the school calls and requests you collect your child because they are ill. You collect your child.

You do not proceed to finish off the rest of your tasks first.

Unbelievable.

Exactly.

You should have called the school as soon as you decided you weren't going to attend the interview, in the circumstances they may have given you the opportunity to reschedule. It's really disrespectful to their time to just no-show without even bothering to attempt to contact them.

As for the sanctions, it's hard to say, but it doesn't reflect well that you treated a job opportunity so flippantly.

You should have phoned the school the interview was at. Not attending and not notifying them (even if that was after you'd picked your ill daughter up and were back home) reflects poorly on you.
Had you called, they may have been able to reschedule.
How had you communicated with the council to apply for the job and be invited to interview? Did you receive an email? Did you respond to that email?

If you were serious about the job you'd have looked at the school website before your interview anyway.

As a Hiring Manager, I wouldn't give you a second chance. You showed poor judgement, a lack of initiative, and a total lack of respect for the interviewer's time. Not to mention the fact that some other candidate could have had that interview and gotten the job.

If you don't act in an adult and professional manner, how can you even say you deserve to be interviewed? You fully deserve to be sanctioned.

Unless your child needed to go to A&E, they'd have been fine for the 45 minutes it takes to have an interview.

Your child is at school, therefore you know that schools have office staff to take calls. Your excuses are weak, and I think if you thought about it critically for one second you'd realise that.

Learn from this and do better next time would be my recommendation. If you want to stand any chance of improving your lot, then you're going to need a backbone.

They do, as long as a child has been registered them going home sick will not affect their attendance.
We don't know in this case though if OP's child would have been able to stay at school.
However, whatever the case there is no excuse for not letting her interviewers know

You don’t sound like you have your priorities in order. Your phone should have been off while focused and prepping for the interview. Your child was safe being looked after at school until you were free to pick them up - it wasn’t an emergency.

If it were me id have said "I'm sorry I have a job interview which I can't miss but I will pick her up asap" she would have been fine to wait a while

Why not? You should have contacted them.

Surely though they can be left for an extra half hour or however long the interview would take, the OP was on her way when she got the call.

This situation isn't similar. She was interviewing for a job in a school, which will be at the very least at NMW. She will most likely still be entitled to UC top up, so won't be going short. She didn't prioritise the interview and didn't have the decency to tell them.

You PHONED THEM
big difference
This was in a school (so presumably not comission only) and OP didn't turn up for the interview or even let them know
I genuinely hope not because I don't want to see anyone struggle for basics but OP could be risking her UC payments

You need a third (ideally) local emergency contact for your DD.

I was in court when the school tried to call me to say DS was unwell. They used my third contact who thankfully was able to mind DS until I could get back.

I was discussing just this with my best friend, who is a DWP Work Coach, the other day.

The answer is no, unless you tell your Work Coach you didn't attend the interview, there is no way the DWP will find out. Work Coaches don't have the time to follow up if their clients are attending job interviews, and in your case I highly doubt the Council would tell the DWP you didn't attend.

If your Work Coach asks about it, just say you haven't heard anything. Actually telling them you didn't attend is what will land you in trouble, and at risk of getting a sanction.

Thats ridiculous. No decent parent would leave their sick child at school. Schools don't phone unless the child really isn't fit to be in school as the focus is on attendance rates.

Every single school out there has a website including a phone number for the school office. You could easily have looked up the number it's really poor that you didn't ring and let them know you were not coming as they'd probably have offered to reschedule.
It sounds like you don't really want a job

I thought the same to be honest.