JSA and proof of NINO

Hi

After some help and advice re backdating of JSA.

Client applied for JSA but a NINO could not be found for her. Unfortunately there is no record at JCP of claim being made. Seemingly they could see her number but could not access it.

Client contacted HMRC after being told NINO could not be found by JCP. The HMRC could not find a NINO for her so was advised to attend job centre for identity evidence interview.
(Client been resident here since birth). This took several weeks.

She contacted the Job Centre and was told to bring in proof (this claim has been logged)
Client advises took in proof to Job Centre which was not accepted, it took over 6 weeks (over xmas period too) but eventually proof of ID was accepted and claim awarded but only from when ID was accepted.

None of the visits to Job Centre by client have been logged by the Job Centre.

Job Centre have refused backdating request saying they have no record of inital contact. My arguement is that how could she have known that there was no record of her NINO if she had not contacted them in the first place.

Help :)

Short answer is appeal (or rather MR then appeal).

1. The argument that she could not have known to contact them with proof of ID in support of allocation of NINo unless JCP had informed her of the necessity of doing this and that this is evidence of her having already contacted/claimed is a good one - you would, I am sure, get somewhere with this at FtT.

2. However, the way that I read your post (correct me if I’m wrong) is that once proof of ID was eventually accepted, she was awarded JSA - i.e. without the need to make a new/further claim. If this is correct/what happened then the DWP would be stuffed on any appeal - how have they paid her without a claim?

3. Did she happen to claim HB/CTR along with the JSA claim? If she did then the local authority may well have (should have) what is termed a ‘Local Authority Input Document’ on their system showing the date of the JSA claim - this would be there regardless of whether JSA or HB were awarded - may we worth asking them if there is one as this would be compelling evidence of the claim.

But even in the absence of 2 and 3, point 1 is a runner.

Hi

Thanks for that.

MR been refused now at appeal.

Sorry i wasn’t clear. They are only awarding job seekers from when suitable ID was provided   as 30 days lapsed since initial contact was made (according to their records). They are treating the submission of her ID as first date of new contact.
There is no record at JC of her first contact months before.