Sanctions issued to jobseekers (FOI)

Request​

Please provide the following information in respect of the years 2014 and 2015:
The reasons, broken down into specific categories, to explain why the Social Security Department issued ‘sanctions’ to registered jobseekers (in the form of warnings and breaches of warnings) for failing to be available for and actively seeking remunerative work.

Provide the number of warnings and breaches of warnings issued for the following listed failures to comply with the actively seeking work requirements of Regulation 4 of the Income Support (Jersey) Regulations 2007:

(1) Failure to comply with Regulation 4(1)(a) not in Jersey or temporarily absent from Jersey without a reasonable excuse.

(2) Failure to comply with Regulation 4(1)(b) not willing and able to take up, as soon as reasonably practicable, any remunerative work that is suitable work.

(3) Failure to comply with Regulation 4(1)(c) not taking all reasonable steps to obtain remunerative work that is suitable work, to include a separate breakdown of any failures to take the following specific steps –

(i) Regulation 4(2)(a) failure
to attend any training that may assist the person in obtaining remunerative work that is suitable work without a reasonable excuse, or when attending the training, not participating in it to the best of the person’s ability.
(ii) Regulation 4(2)(b) failure to attend any work experience placement that may assist the person in obtaining remunerative work that is suitable work without a reasonable excuse, or when attending the work experience placement, not undertaking it to the best of the person’s ability.

(4) Failure to comply with Regulation 4(1)(d) unreasonably turning down any offer of remunerative work that is suitable work.

(5) Failure to comply with Regulation 4(1)(e) failing to attend every interview arranged by the Minister without a reasonable excuse.

Response 

The Social Security Department have issued 1,322 sanctions in 2014 and 751 in 2015.

The information needed to answer parts 1 to 5, is held in individual records within sanction documentation and/or information relation to jobseeker activity within the Social Security database. To answer the question would require each record to be viewed to obtain the information, and this would exceed 12.5 hours.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Your request, therefore, will not be processed further.