To this is absolutely insane! Universal Credit Sanction

[ThisIsInsane]

Adult DD has had an absolute nightmare trying to get a job since she was fired just before Christmas,

She wasn’t happy in the role previous to that so applied for another, got it, gave her resignation. Three days into the new role, she was told, she wasn’t a good fit and immediately fired. She did absolutely nothing wrong btw.

This has massively affected her mental health. She’s never been fired before or been unemployed.

She has literally applied for over 1500 jobs since then, only got two interviews which she wasn’t successful at.

She missed a UC appointment in June. Not sure what exactly happened but she has evidence of her job search. At every appointment they tell her she’s applying for a lot of jobs and there’s noting they can do to help.

They have sanctioned her UC so she has only got £7!

According to the letter she has been sanctioned for 30 days for a first offence of missing one appointment after 6 months in which they have not helped her find a job!

She has an appointment later today and I’m planning to go with her to complain as she isn’t in the right head space to. I just think it’s totally disgusting! She lives at home luckily but can’t pay her phone bill even!

Imagine if she was living on her own and had no support!

AIBU to think this is extreme and unjustifiable punishment?

OP said she has a degree, which means she’s done GCSE and A Level/BTEC. So academically she can, just would need training

So nasty.

Other countries like Sweden give every unemployed person 80 percent of their last job income.

The UK is very bad in this area.

When you fail to attend a UC appointment your are given 7 days to explain why, if this is the first appointment you have missed and you explain it is due to mental health this is accepted as a good reason and it is not sent to the decision maker. If you have missed 3 for good reasons, the 4th is sent to the decision maker. If you do not give a reason it is sent to the decision maker. The decision maker decides whether a sanction is appropriate.

For the first sanction in 12 months you are sanctioned the number of days between not attending and the day you contact and ask for the appointment to be rebooked, plus 7 days. For a 45 days sanction your daughter must have ignored the prompts to rebook for 38 days OR asked for it to be rebooked and then not attend again until 38 days after the original appointment.

If this process has not been followed she can ask for a mandatory reconsideration which can overturn the sanction or shorten it as they have not followed the above.

So she’s apparently applied for 1500 jobs in 6 months which is about 250 a month but is sleeping 14-16 hours a day. That’s a lot of jobs a day. Then on top of that if she really has applied for that many jobs which seems unlikely, you are now saying she isn’t capable of attending one appointment or rearranging it within timescales?

Something isn’t adding up here.

Your daughters life seems very dramatic in my opinion - threatened with a knife, assaulted, fired after 3 days for no fault of her own, applied for 1500 jobs with no success. I’m not saying that none of those things happened, maybe she is just very unlucky, but it does seem a bit strange that’s she had so much happen to her.

She can apply for hardship payment if needed for hygiene costs

I’m so sorry to hear this and that your daughter is struggling to find jobs. If you want I could send you my CV (it’s quite well written) and some practice interview questions. I’ve always been good at getting jobs.

your daughter would have been asked to give her reasons as to why she did not attend and given 7 days to do so. If she did not do that it would have been automatically sent up to a decision maker to decide if a sanction was appropriate.
Has she missed prior appointments? If so, after so many it gets sent up to a decision maker. You can request a mandatory reconsideration. You can also request a recoverable hardship payment.
Has she declared anxiety and depression under health on her UC account. There is lots of support on offer - she can be signposted and referred to various services.
iIf she is too unwell to work she can get a fit note from the GP, easements can be put in place and a work capability assessment carried out.
work searching - the nature of recruitment has changed - job centres no longer have jobs on boards or find people jobs as recruitment is digital and centralised. Recruiters find it a waste of resources working with job centres. However, job centres do have resources to help with job searching, tailoring cv’s and cover letters. They will always tell you quality over quantity regarding application. Is she making use of these resources?

Generally if it’s only a few days there’s little or no notice period it would be no more than a week!
Absolutely she should not lie, if it was discovered the sanction would be far worse as she will have committed fraud!

If she had applied for 1500 jobs and only got 2 interviews something is seriously wrong. There are jobs out there obviously so why isn’t she getting any of them. Is she over/under qualified. Does she need help with interview skills? Is her CV relatable? Can she get help with these issues and then see if that helps?

Maybe she needs to be more resilient? Getting the hump and resorting to sleeping all day won’t do her any good in the long run. Pick up bar/ cafe work in the meantime of looking for a job she wants ?

OP you are right. £7.00 for an entire months living costs is inhumane. The end.

OP does your DD have a work coach at the Jobcentre ? If not, ask her to request one and then declare a mental health condition. She doesn’t need a formal diagnosis - she can be considered to have a MH disability if it significantly impacts her day to day life. The work coach can then carry out a work assessment to see what kind of work DD may be suited to and how best to apply. They will take MH into account and will work with your DD on a suitable plan for a return to employment. They will also be able to advise on how best to avoid sanctions and whether any exemptions apply.

Your daughter sounds like she has ptsd from what happened to her. She needs to go to the doctor and get diagnosed. They will help her. I don’t know how it translates to benefits but there should be some kind of help in that direction for her. She’s finding life difficult and sleeping too much which is not surprising after a sexual assault.

Calling the MD rude regardless to if he was was a bold move on her 3rd day. Not surprising they let her probably thought rightly or wrongly she was going to cause issues in the future.

Should he have said it of course not but it’s not a perfect world and you have to choose battles wisely at work.

This. Some posters have little or no idea what actually constitutes benefit fraud.

YANBU.

Universal Credit was set up to punish people.

People have been sanctioned for missing appointments while having operations, or interviews or after having informed them in the proper way that they can't make the meeting. It's particularly difficult for people who are unwell due to physical or mental ill health.

And yes, those who don't have other support do fall through the cracks. Anyone here who thinks it's ok to give someone £7 a week to live on needs to have a word with themselves. How are they meant to survive? (Some don't).

Amnesty International recently described our benefits system as "Consciously Cruel” and “Ruining Lives”. They've published a report that says

The evidence delivers damning conclusions on how the system processes, punishes, harms and dehumanises people and fails to meet international legal obligations. Successive UK governments have ignored the United Nations (UN) pleas to take urgent action to fix this.

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/uk-social-security-system-%E2%80%9Cconsciously-cruel%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Cruining-lives%E2%80%9D-finds-amnesty-uk

I wonder if your DD might do better to apply to far fewer jobs but with a more tailored application. I know you said she did tailored cover letters but I find a really good job application requires quite a bit of time spent reading about the employer, the job, useful facts/background/latest news in the field etc. Maybe if she does some research like that it could help her to stand out a bit more? Has she asked for feedback from any of the rejectors to find out what went wrong?

Actually, people do get fired when they've done nothing wrong. Happens all the time.

Because everyone knows you don’t call out the big boss who does the hiring and firing while you are so new and can be sacked. How did it stop him doing it? It didn’t, it just meant your DD lost a job.

You play the long game. Or look for other jobs while remaining employed. Once you have passed probation etc and would have a case for unfair dismissal you try reporting it having gathered examples of the inappropriate behaviour.

Yes I do agree with this. A job application took me about 3 full evenings recently.

You’re contradicting yourself - you say she’s applied for over 1500 jobs since Christmas - that’s approx 20 a day not including weekends, and yet here you’re saying she doesn’t get out of bed sleeping for 14-16 hours a day.
Ultimately, she didn’t attend her appointment, didn’t cancel or reschedule, just didn’t show up. I’m not sure why you think she should be receiving UC as she is giving off no signs that she wants to work.

Have to agree. A few years ago now but I worked as an Employment Advisor at a Jobcentre and there will be entry level service/caring/cleaning jobs - if not any entry level data entry/admin/receptionist style jos. Not ideal but the best interim measure to stop that gap wining in her CV and at least money will be coming in and her mental health will hopefully improve with it.

As for the comment to her boss, you say she did nothing wrong but have to disagree. It’s not her fight, surely at 25 she should know some basic common sense etiquette. She should have just said nothing. In time, once she’s established herself, she may be in a position to perhaps safely challenge such incidences.

Also, I wouldn’t go into the job centres with DD to complain - the rules are the rules and DD can appeal if she has cause to. However, it may help if you went to support her and perhaps ask Qs about the job searching and possible opps as right now you only have what your DD tells you and you may have a different interpretation of their advice. When I worked there, there were always schemes and placements with jobs attached and other initiatives ongoing.

No, by that logic lots of applicants are turned down each time and one is lucky. It's perfectly possible to keep being one of the unsuccessful applicants.

Reading this back,

It is sad that a misogynistic boss fired her, when she stood up for another woman.

And she has no power in thst situation whatsoever.

And now it is affecting her getting her next job

Good advice.