can you get sanctioned whilst on UC if you have sent in a fit-note ....

janeyj

my son who claims uc but he as been suffering with mental health issues for a few mths & his Gp as been giving him sick notes as hes unfit for work ....hes been  sending in his sick note "fit-note"   but they are saying  hes getting sanctioned  £10.50 a day for 40 days how can they sanction him when hes unfit for  work .... i dont understand 

Antonia_Alumni

Welcome to the community @janeyj sorry to hear this, from the Citizen Advice website, it says: 

You can ask for the DWP to rethink their decision if you think you've been sanctioned unfairly. This is called ‘mandatory reconsideration’ - the contact details will be on the letter sent to you about your sanction.

You'll need to tell them why you think the sanction was wrong. You can prepare by:

• reading the arguments for challenging a sanction
• checking if you were given the right sanction 

Your nearest Citizens Advice can help you.

You can read more on this here. Please keep us updated or if you have any questions, do let us know.

Adrian_Scope

Hi @janeyj, I'm sorry to hear this has happened. Was a reason given for the sanction?

BenefitsTrainingCo

Hi @janeyj Sorry to hear that your son is having these problems.  Unfortunately within the Universal Credit system, just because a claimant has handed in a fit note does not mean that they do not have certain conditions related to work or work related activity that have to be complied with.  I cannot work out what the sanction is for at 40 days, but certainly he should request a mandatory reconsideration as set out in the above posts.  A sanction cannot be applied where there is a good reason for the claimant failing to act/or failing to meet a requirement.  His poor mental health may be accepted as such, but if he could get any medical evidence to support that, this would increase the strength of his case. He must discuss his conditionality requirements with his workcoach.  The workcoach has discretion to reduce requirements if he accepts that your son has restrictions due to his health problems.  If not already done, I would also make a request via his journal for him to be sent a form UC50 - this is the start of the formal process the DWP use to consider if someone can be accepted as not fit for work and this can reduce the requirements your son would have to meet in order to get UC, and would also minimise the likelihood of further sanctions.  You can see more about the Work Capability Assessment here.  I hope this all works out for him.  Sarah