Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

If an adviser wishes to make a variation to a claimant's JSAg and the claimant does not agree to it the matter is forwarded to a decision maker. Should the decision maker rule in favour of the adviser's variation then the jobseeker has 21 days in which to accept the variation or his claim is closed.

If the jobseeker decides within the 21 days to agree to the variation but then finds another, different reason to not accept the varied JSAg or the adviser presents a further variation to which the jobseeker does not agree, what is the procedure under legislation for resolving this?

In particular would the matter again be referred to a decision maker and would the claimant have a further 21 days to agree to the variation if the DM rules again in favour of the adviser? Would JSA continue to be paid until a new JSAg is agreed to?

Also could you confirm and provide the relevant legislation to show that the 21 day period commences from the day that the decision maker makes his decision?

Furthermore, as the decision maker's decision will be notified to the claimant by post, the claimants 21 days for consideration will be reduced by the delay in delivery of the letter which, from experience, can be anything up to 7 days. Does the claimant have any redress in this circumstance to 'reclaim' his rightful 21 day period for consideration?

Yours faithfully,

Jason Davies

Dear Operations FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response, however, it does not provide the answer I required, possibly because I did not make the question as clear as I might have.

I will attempt to clarify my question. If the claimant disagrees with a variation to the JSAg being made by an adviser and, having been sent to the DM who rules in favour of the adviser's change/s, the jobseeker decides to comply with the change/s within the 21 day period allowed - for example, on the 20th day he decides to agree to the variation - but at the same time discovers some other different reason to disagree with the JSAg, would the JSAg be re-referred to the DM and would the initial 21 day period get extended by a further 21 days from when the DM this time makes his decision - assuming the decision again goes against the jobseeker?

I can find nothing in the DM guide to answer this and would be grateful if you would provide any guides or legislation which answers my request.

Yours sincerely,

Jason Davies