JSA Refused

Hi All,

I have a client who has contact order regaridng access to his daughter. He spent several years obtaining this, as well as a small fortune. As such he sees his daughter every second weekend. However, the client lives in SW London and his daughter lives just outside Middlesbrough, as such he travels up on a Friday evening to collect her on a Saturday and returns her Sunday evening.

It has been decided that he is not available for work, as he has limited himself to not being available one Friday out of every two, although has stated that he would work any 7 days in one week and 4 days in the next. This has been rejected and the appeal has now been forwarded to The Tribunal Service. The client has now approached us for help. In the papers the decision maker seems to accept that in light of the contact order that the client can limit his availability.

The submission goes on to state that for this to be accepted the client has to show ‘reasonbaly’ what jobs would be available to him, for 40 hours per week, over the 4 days. This seems wrong to me, on my reading of the regulations. There doesn’t seem to be anything about this as it would seem that his pattern of availability would easily mean he could work 40 hours per week.

Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated.

This could be a no-brainer if he can bring himself within the provisions of reg 7 of the JSA Regs.  However, the provision of reg 13 will protect claimants from the preclusive effect of reg 7.  See 13(4) but note sub-para (b).

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/a11-4001.pdf

Nevip, thanks for your input, that is very helpful.