Failing to participate: Sanctions v End of Claim

A claimant fails to participate in an interview: if they contact the JC+ within 5 days, but ‘no good reason’ is identified, claimant faces lower level sanction. If they don’t contact JC+, the claim ends (Reg 25) but no sanction is imposed. On the face of it, therefore, a claimant would be better not to contact JC+ at all, and just reclaim after 5 days.

I had previously assumed that on reclaim an intermediate sanction would then apply. However on looking closer at the relevant legislation and DMG it seems to me that the criteria for an intermediate sanction (not actively seeking and failing to be available) don’t seem to follow automatically from a previous failure to participate.

(a) Legally, am I missing something?
(b) Do people have experience of how this pans out in practice?

I think DWP can make a decision under s.19A(2)(a) that as the person has, without good case, failed to comply with regulations requiring them to attend an interview and that a sanction therefore applies, and if the person reclaims within 26 weeks of the disallowance of JSA, then the sanction kicks in.

Effectively, the s.19A decision is made on the date of the failure to attend the interview and once the 5 day window has passed, the provisions of reg.25 kick in to end entitlement. Whether they actually break it down that way in practice, I’m not so sure as some of the decisions we’ve seen have the DWP throwing a whole raft of regulations as being applicable to these types of cases and hoping some of it sticks.

At least that’s how I read it, and we’ve certainly heard of this happening in practice.

Thanks Paul (and sorry for delayed response)

Yes, that’s plausible. Although it makes the distinction between ‘intermediate’ sanctions (s.19B, ‘fixed period reduced by period of disallowance’) and ‘low’ sanctions (s.19A, ‘fixed period sanctions’) a bit blurred. The word ‘effectively’ suggests, as you say, that they haven’t totally thought this through.

Maybe I am overthinking this, expecting the legal structure here to make logical sense!