Unfair benefits sanction?

[Snowymorning]

Not a begging post and I’ll make things work but just wanted opinions whether I’ve been unfairly treated. I lost my job about 9 months ago due to cuts at work and I’m currently on Universal Credit and have been looking for work around school hours as I’m a single parent and my daughter is in reception . I was signed up for a back to work programme called Restart. Restart kept booking appointments in at school pick up time even though I had told them I can’t attend at these times. I always let them know and asked to rearrange but they kept doing it. I’ve now been sanctioned by the job centre for not attending two Restart appointments booked in at 3pm and they’ve took £363 off me this month. I just think this is unfair at Christmas time especially as a single mum with a 4 year old. I really don’t have anyone else who could have collected my daughter for me either. Fairly new to area and don’t know anybody who could have. Is this fair for them to have done this?

If she was at work she would have childcare? Not comparable.

I'd be interested to know why they keep giving you that appointment time, and they reason for not offering a more manageable alternative.
Yes, in the longer term you might well need to sort a childminder/wrap around care for your child once you are working, but at the moment you haven't sorted such an arrangement out because you don't yet routinely need to! It's also quite hard to just suddenly set up a one off if you've no friends/family nearby to help.
I feel the amount is unnecessarily high too.
Can you appeal this?
Sorry things are so hard.

@Snowymorning can you get in touch with your local MP? I know MPs differ vastly but mine is very good (in spite of being a Tory - highly unusual tbh). If you send them an email detailing this problem I think that would be your best bet to get help.

There might be many reasons why she is looking for school hours only, including that she believes her daughter needs her around. There might be no or expensive wrap around care. In any case, I don't think the OP was asking whether she was being reasonable looking for school hours work.

Yes OP I think it's grossly unfair that you are being sanctioned for that. The work coach should be supporting you into work, not sanctioning you.

My council kept sending me the wrong CT bill and after I contacted my MP, they magically sorted it out within 24 hours.

@Snowymorning please contact your local MP in this matter. The DWP have to respond to an MP complaint, so get all your evidence together of telling them that you cannot do an appt at school pick up, then phone the MP office first thing tomorrow.
It's an absolute disgrace. Repeatedly putting a single mother's Appt at school pick up time is cruel and manipulative. Please involve your MP.

A family member used to work in this area. They would never have booked in an appointment like that. Appointments would have been at a mutually agreed time. Sometimes people turned up outside of their appointment time and the team would try and fit them in if one of them was free.
No shows got a phone call and only reported to the Job Centre/DWP for repeat offences. Even then they would only be sanction £10pw, if at all.

You're missing a whole lot, as it happens. Firstly, any clue as to the reality of the STRESS of trying to survive on a benefit, nevermind with a young child, and secondly, how freaking time consuming it is to a. look after a child, look for work, manage all the demands issued by appallingly inefficient got departments issuing paltry benefits, and b. the devastating and way out of proportion nightmare that sanctions cause.

I am sure she wouldn't be reported to the LA and fined for taking her child out one day.

The rules stink, but the rules are that she has to be available for work under this restart scheme. Looking for school hours term time only jobs is like looking for hens' teeth.

I'm a single parent, I had 3 kids and the youngest was only at nursery when we split. I had to work an 80 minute commute away for minimum wage - that was the expectation at the time - 90 mins each way was as far as you could be expected to travel, and I got a job that was 80 mins away on public transport, could be longer if there was a glitch but technically (not counting walk time to the station) it was 80 mins door to door. I got tax credits, and a proportion of my childcare was paid (I think 85% but I can't remember, it was almost 20 years ago).

The system isn't fair, and as a single parent to 3 kids I was on my fucking knees with tiredness every Friday, but it is what it is.

Lobby to change it. But in the meantime, you have to comply or you will be sanctioned.

I'm not sure if this is the same but when my DH lost his job in 2009 he had to attend the job centre every week and at the times they said.
The rules were there to ensure you weren't working. OP knows she isn't but how do they know.
I would just pick your DD up early and go through to the appointment. Didn't they tell you you'd be sanctioned if you didn't turn up? Also on once me and the kids were incredibly sick so DH was able to do his appointment on the phone. That might be an option but probably not long term.
It's shit but the rules are the same for everyone. Appeal but take DD out of school next time.

@MyopicBunny i think you’ll find that if the child is 4 then they cannot fine as she’s below legal school age (5)
I only know this as my NDN took her child out of school for a holiday during term time and they couldn’t fine her…. 😳

Definitely appeal though, op.

I still think the job centre are deliberately asking the OP to come at school pick up time so that she finds it hard and so that they can sanction her.

Ask for a mandatory reconsideration as if you did ask them to rearrange the times with plenty of notice then you have been reasonable. However with a 4 year old you are expected to seek 30 hours of work now and use childcare for this. Restart kicks in after 9 months unemployment so you do need to broaden your work parameters it seems.

Yes, potentially they are making a point and there is a wider issue here about the amount of roles op is applying for.

Yes, I don't know what it's like to manage like this, that's true.

I do just want to say that there are plenty of people struggling in the same manner who do work. While that is also wrong, I do think that if you are claiming benefits, there should be some understanding that "he who pays the piper calls the tune", just in the same way a boss does.

That being said, I do have sympathy for the OP (as I said in the 3rd post on the thread) and I hope she gets the sanction lifted.

People really need to stop obsessing over "fair". Fairness has nothing to do with the real world, and doubly less in DWP land.

The real question is whether this is correct. And under current guidelines it is. UC claimants are required to be available for work, and that includes interviews. If a UC claimant cannot attend an interview, then by definition they aren't available for work. And as we have seen, the system has an outcome for that.

Restart coaches have very little say in how they dish out appointments. Their main concern is to evidence the claimants they are assigned have complied with the Restart conditions, or the provider (ultimately the DPW in the guise of SERCO) will want their money back.

Personally I think it's a cruel system which enriches government chums at the expense of vulnerable people. However I realise that's not a popular view these days.

The only practical advice to the OP is to conform to the system. Which is probably less than helpful, but really the only way. The are no grounds for appeal because the system has been designed in a fairytale world of perfect childcare which has been politically promised. And we should all know that political promises trump reality.

Folk can probably tell I am glad I no longer work in that field.

Sitters.co.Uk don’t do school pick ups. They look after children in their own homes or in a hotel, if say parents were at a child free wedding reception.
You also have to pay a registration fee due annually, £60.00 (it might have gone up since I last used them) a booking fee to sitters and bookings are a minimum of 3 hrs at £10.50+per hour depending on where you are in the country.
So, this option would not have been viable for the OP.
I agree that the sanction was unfair

my friend had this once, couldnt afford her food shop all month because of it and had to get food banks and help from everyone she was devastated as she had worked her whole life from 16 yrs to 35 and had only been on universal credit for 6 months, had to cancel once because her child was ill in hospital, other cancellation was because they kept booking it at school pick up time and her school doesnt do after school care they said she needed to get the father to pick up!! THERE WAS NO FATHER! Bold to presume.

The real question is whether this is correct. And under current guidelines it is. UC claimants are required to be available for work, and that includes interviews. If a UC claimant cannot attend an interview, then by definition they aren't available for work. And as we have seen, the system has an outcome for that.

That's nonsense. If you have a dependent to pick up then you can't just not pick them up otherwise you'll have social services on your case.

You obviously think that the DWP has a computer says no approach but in my experience your MP can override this. There should be wiggle room. People are not robots.

Does your school have after school club and are they aware either way? It seems fair to expect you to use after school club if there is one available but if not I can’t see what else they expect you to do.

The OP has just said that there is no wraparound care.

@Shelovespawpatrol expected hours have increased.

Age between 3 and 12 You will be expected to work up to 30 hours a week, or spend up to 30 hours a week on work-related activities such as applying for jobs.

How on earth is this fair, unless you think it's fine for OP to leave her DC standing at the school gates? (In which case, as has been pointed out, she'd be in trouble with social services.)

All I saw in her only post was that she said she didn’t have anyone who could collect her child because she’s new to the area and doesn’t know anyone. That’s not the same thing.