Housing Benefit ‘Disallowance’ With A JSA Sanction

Kate Belgrave recorded this recently at a jobcentre:

Here’s a transcript. Kate Belgrave’s confused.

“Now, as I was saying, if you are on one of our courses and you either don’t bother to attend that course, or if you are removed from it by your own actions, those things and the other things that I mentioned, if you can remember, could cost you four weeks’ jobseekers’ allowance. When you have your signing on appointments, things are slightly different… if we don’t think that you have applied for as many jobs as you could have, if you don’t provide sufficient detail on the jobs you have applied for, or if you do nothing at all, not only do you run the risk of losing four weeks’ jobseekers’ allowance, there is also a two-week disallowance of other benefits you are receiving. The only exception being child benefit. Now, most people who claim jobseekers’ allowance are also claiming housing benefit and council tax benefit as well. The disallowance means that you would be liable to cover your rent and your council tax costs for two weeks, as well as losing four weeks’ jobseekers’ allowance. Now, these sanctions have been in place for over two years. If it’s never affected you, you may never have known any of this. I’m just giving you the worst case scenarios.”

Okay. The are several possibilities here. One is that the adviser was wrong. Another is that the adviser was right (and let’s face it – he sounded pretty well-versed. People who run these induction courses know what they’re saying and the messages they’re sending, more to the point). Is it possible to misconstrue what the adviser said, or the message being sent here? – if it is, I’m sure someone will put us right. I certainly don’t mind saying that I’m confused.

If anyone can shed any light on things, please do. As I say, people left that meeting very much under the impression that there would be a two-week and non-challengeable loss of housing benefit and council tax benefit if they were sanctioned. If that is not the case, they certainly should be told and some sort of clarifying statement made for everyone, including jobcentre advisors who run induction sessions (I have asked the DWP for such a statement. They generally never get back to me these days, but who knows. Perhaps this post will motivate them). There was certainly no mention of the ways to restart housing benefit if it stopped when you got a JSA sanction, or any indication that asking for backdated housing benefit payments to the start date of a sanction was a possibility – ie, the things people can do when their housing benefit is stopped because of a JSA sanction. It was just the usual “you can kiss all your money goodbye.”

Which is par for the course at jobcentres, I must say. You hear an awful lot about the ways you can lose your benefits. You hear a lot less about the ways that you can get them back. You also hear a lot of confusing, worrying things about the hits you’ll take if you’re sanctioned and the benefits that will be affected. This stuff is done far too casually. It needs a serious sorting out.