Good cause
It is possible to avoid a sanction if you can show that you had good cause in not taking up a job or a place on a training scheme.
The law gives several examples of what a good cause might be (see below) but case law has provided a more general definition i.e. some fact which (looking at all the circumstances) would cause a reasonable person of your age and experience to act as you did.
The following is a list of those factors that the DWP will take into account when deciding if you had good cause for your actions:
Jobseeker's Allowance Page Index.
Introduction to Jobseeker's Allowance.
Jobseeker's Allowance and being available for work.
Jobseeker's Allowance and actively seeking work.
Jobseeker's Allowance and being capable of work.
Jobseeker's Allowance and education.
Jobseeker's Allowance rates of pay.
Residence rules for Jobseeker's Allowance.
Income based Jobseeker's Allowance.
You will have good cause if you have attended a training course (lasting longer than two months) for a particular kind of job and you refuse or fail to apply for another type of job within four weeks of the end of the training course. For example if you undertake six weeks' training to be a motor mechanic you can refuse the offer of a job to be a shop assistant for four weeks after finishing the course.
If you are within the first thirteen weeks of a claim and have restricted the type of employment that you will consider then you will have good cause in refusing a job that is not your usual occupation or a job that does not pay at the level that you are used to receiving.
Laid off claimants and claimants who are on short time who have restricted the employment they are willing to take will have good cause in refusing work that falls outside those restrictions.
If you have caring responsibilities or do voluntary work, you will have good cause to turn down an offer of work if this is dependent on you starting within one week. You do not have good cause if you have caring responsibilities or do voluntary work if you refuse to attend a job interview and are given more than 48 hours notice.
You will have good cause to refuse or fail to apply for a job if you are providing a service and are only given 24 hours' notice of the job starting. The DWP says that people providing a service may include those who are working and those who are serving community service orders;
If you are working without pay and you are required by employment law to give notice to terminate your contract then you will have good cause to refuse work that is due to start before your period of notice would end;
If you have been able to restrict your availability to certain days of the week and hours of the day then you will have good cause to refuse to take up or to apply for a job that falls outside these restrictions.
If you are participating in New Deal 25+ education based as a full-time student then you will have good cause to refuse to take up a job if there is less than four weeks to go before the end of your course or examinations or the work is not casual employment in a vacation from the qualifying course or permanent remunerative work.
You will have good cause to refuse work if this would mean that you would break you anti-social behaviour order, community order or community disposal. The DWP state that in order to show good cause you should make attempts to get the order varied.
You will have good cause to refuse work that exceeds an average of 48 hours per week. The average is worked out over 17 weeks.
You will have good cause to refuse work if it pays less than the national minimum wage that applies to you.
You will have good cause to refuse work if you can show that it would be likely to cause significant harm to your health or would cause unreasonable physical or mental stress. If you are claiming this then the DWP are usually likely to check this out with your doctor. In some cases Decision Makers can accept your assertion if they feel that either the work or the workplace would worsen your medical condition.
The example given is of someone with asthma who is offered work in a "dusty atmosphere". In terms of unreasonable stress, it is recognised that you can experience physical or mental stress without this damaging your health.
Examples of physical stress are if you are disabled and are offered work which is physically demanding or that the work involves night shifts and you find it difficult to sleep during the day.
An example of mental stress is being offered a job in a place that you dread like an abattoir or an undertaker's;
You will have good cause to refuse work because of a sincerely held religious or conscientious objection. To demonstrate good cause you must be able to show that the terms and conditions of employment conflicts with the principles on which your objection is based and that your religious or conscientious objection is sincerely held. The term "sincerely held" is not defined.
You will have good cause if you have caring responsibilities and can show that it would be unreasonable for you to accept the work.
The DWP does not consider "inconvenient" to be the same as unreasonable. If you have caring responsibilities then you would need to show that taking up the work would mean that you couldn't fulfil your caring duties. Examples given are working at night or very early starts or very late finishes or work requiring to have overnight stays away from home;
you will have good cause to refuse a job if it would entail more than 90 minutes each way in travelling time to and from work.
The exceptions to this are- if you have restricted your availability to a certain type of employment even though other jobs re available nearer to your home or you have previously travelled for ninenty minutes to and from work and didn't find this to be a problem or you live in a remote location where most people have long journeys to work.
You will have good cause to refuse a job if you can show that you would incur employment expenses which would take up an unreasonably high proportion of your expected pay.
Employment expenses should be for things like travelling expenses, the cost of tools or equipment, the cost of essential protective clothing and the cost of a criminal record check. Child care costs, deductions from your wages for tax, national insurance and pension contributions will not be taken into account.
No definition is given of what an "unreasonably high" proportion may be but the point is made that as a wage increases, the more reasonable it is for the expenses to be a higher proportion of it.
You may have good cause if you can show that accepting a job would prevent you from completing a course of study which you are taking in order to further your career. If you do this however the DWP may query whether you are actually available for work.
