Has anybody else had problems with Jobcentre Plus telling clients that they can't apply for a crisis loan until they have had a new claim interview?

We are being told by local social fund officers (who even put a poster up in the JC+ office to this effect) that "there is a national policy that claimants can't be considered for a crisis loan until they have had a new claim interview" (irrespective of how long they are made to wait for this by the DWP). Their justification for this seems to be directive 22 ability to repay.

We have obviously referred these cases to IRS, but would be interested to know if anybody else has encountered this "national policy", whether it is legislative? (although I don't think I would have missed such a big change) and whether anyone has had any success challenging it.

Thanks

On an anecdotal basis, I have the rare pleasure of sitting on the reader's panel of the Independent Review Service Digest of Decisions, which is popped inside the Journal they publish. It is attended by SF Reviewing Officers and of course, IRS staff, as well as a few of us attempting to represent the views of claimants.

This issue came up some months ago, with the majority of the Reviewing Officers at the meeting adamant that this would be justifiable, if not correct, procedure. This was on the basis that some kind of safeguard is needed against serial crisis loan claimants, who never actually sign on, but pop back into the JC+ every time they feel like a cash injection. Not a problem I was aware of before, but to be fair I am sheltered in my own parish, and who knows where the truth lies.

Anyway, needless to say, the Inspectors indicated that there was no basis for such insistence on a new claim interview. Indeed the Inspectors drew attention to the very directive 22 in their reasoning, as any claimant only has to be 'likely to be able to repay'.

If there is a 'national policy' in these terms, I would also be very keen to see it.

Are the minutes of this meeting generally available?

From having challenged these decisions with local officers prior to referral to IRS it would appear that like us they too have never seen this "national policy".

Sadly it's not the sort of meeting where any diligent minutes are kept.

I too have come across Crisis Loan 'policies' implemented at local level which don't have any basis in guidance or law. I think you have done the right thing challenging it thru IRS and would encourage people to make use of the Review procedure in these situations. Has the poster been taken down yet?!

Yes. After significant persuasion the posters were removed.

I have a client attempting to get a crisis loan from Bransbury JCP while waiting for her IS application to be processed, she is appealing an IB decision and has right to reduced IS. She was at first told that she couldn't apply because she may not be able to repay. I then advised her to insist upon making an appilaction and ask for reasons if refused.

She was allowed to make an application but was refused and the reason given was 'we have decided that we cannot pay you a crisis loan'. I then sent her with a letter asking for a review and the JCP refused to accept the letter!

I have written to the social fund london office asking for a review and am in the process of making a complaint to Barnsbury.

Any other suggestions of ways to tackle this problem?

I had a client who was on IB who needed a Crisis Loan but when he went to Barnsbury he was told that he needed to first apply for a Budgeting Loan. He was told that he would need to wait until a decision was made on that before he could claim a Crisis Loan, even though he explained that he was on IB and therefore not entitled to a BL.

I'd recommend bringing up the poor service at the next JC+ Central London Liaison Meeting (that's what I'm going to do anyway). Other that that I tell clients to call me from the Jobcentre if they're having any problems, which normally helps change their mind pretty quickly.

The Social Fund Commissioner is always interested in hearing about examples of such problems because his/her remit includes monitoring standards generally. As you know the DWP line is often to deny that their staff deter people from claiming SF payments so this type of evidence is very useful.

Previous Commissioner until very recently was Sir Richard Tilt, not sure who the present postholder is.

More details at www.irs-review.org.uk

Wed 02-Feb-05 11:54 AM by ken

Neil's correct about the Social Fund Commissioner's interest in these kind of problems.

The latest annual report by the Social Fund Commissioner emphasises his concern at poor DWP practices and stresses that they must take steps 'to ensure that these practices are eliminated and provide suitable assurance that this has happened.'

See the rightsnet news story -

Claiming crisis loans by telephone: \'Problems and poor practice\' continue

Funny - the head of department is a Sir Richard (Mottram) - you don't suppose somebody found a job lot?

i can't find the CEO's details on the DWP website, and i'm pretty sure Alexis Cleveland was on there at one time... anyone got any ideas...?

jj