You must attend a work-focused interview if you make a claim for income support (IS) or incapacity benefit (IB) or if your partner is claiming extra for you on IS, income-based jobseeker's allowance (JSA), IB or severe disablement allowance (SDA).
If you are claiming IS the work-focused-interview will generally take place shortly after your first contact with Jobcentre Plus. If you are claiming IB (or IS claimed on the grounds of incapacity) it will take place 8 weeks into your claim.
You won’t have to go through separate interviews for each benefit you claim. Some people do not have to attend the interview (see below).
You will have a different interview (though still with a work focus) if you are claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).
In the work-focused interview a ‘personal adviser’ will discuss your work prospects. If you don’t attend the interview without good cause, your claim will lapse or your benefit will be reduced. So you should still attend the interview, even if you feel it is inappropriate for you at the moment (or contact the benefit office straightaway within 5 days of the date of your interview to tell them why you cannot or could not attend).
To pass the interview requirement, you must not only turn up for the interview at the right time, but also take part in it. You are expected to answer questions about your educational qualifications, any vocational training you have undertaken, your employment history, your work-related skills, any paid or unpaid work you are doing and any caring or childcare responsibilities you have.
You may also be asked about any medical condition which in your opinion puts you at a disadvantage in getting a job. This may involve discussing a capability report provided by the DWP doctor who examined you for your IB. Participation in these work-focused interviews should not adversely affect your claim for IB.
If you are claiming IB, or IS (either on the grounds of incapacity or as a lone parent), you will also be required to help the personal adviser complete an ‘action plan’, which will list the steps you are willing to take in order to enhance your job prospects. Otherwise, you are not required to do any more than take part in the interview.
Whether you actually attend training, follow up on a job vacancy or do anything else agreed in the action plan or suggested by the personal adviser is entirely up to you.
If you are aged under 18, you will be referred to the Careers Service or Connexions for help on education and training. You must attend an interview arranged with them unless you can show that you have good cause for not attending an interview.
You may be asked for further interviews.
You are not required to attend a work-focused interview in the following circumstances.
The personal adviser can also waive or defer attendance for an interview if they consider that it would ‘not be of assistance’ to you or ‘appropriate in the circumstances’. Once attendance has been waived you are treated as if you had taken part in the interview. If attendance has been deferred you will have to attend an interview at a later date.
Not surprisingly, this means turning up at the time and place notified for an interview and participating by answering questions and providing relevant information such as your qualifications, employment history etc. You will also be expected to assist in completing an action plan where relevant but there is no requirement to actually take the steps set out in the action plan.
If you are unable to attend or take part in a work focused interview you will need to show good cause to avoid a penalty. A decision maker will look at the circumstances such as where there could be a misunderstanding due to learning, language or literacy difficulties, attending medical or dental appointments or related to a physical or mental condition which made it impossible for attendance.
In November 2002 the government announced its intentions to provide "a new framework of help for those who through illness or disability have applied for incapacity benefit" in order to help them get back into work. Subsequently a number of pilot areas were set up to initiate the Pathways to Work scheme. The work focused interview is different in those areas for people on certain benefits.
On 4 July 2006,Jim Murphy, Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform, announced the launch of the first Provider led Pathways to Work districts in order to achieve national coverage of the Pathways service by 2008.
Jobcentre Plus tendered for external providers to provide a number of services. Contracts have now been allocated to mainly private sector contractors. The successful providers are responsible for:
1. Conducting the second and all subsequent mandatory Work Focused Interviews for those new and repeat customers, claiming benefit on the grounds of incapacity, after October 2007; and
2. Voluntary support for customers regardless of when they made their claim.
If you live in one of the pilot areas, are aged between 18 and 60, and make a claim for incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance or income support (because you are incapable of work) you will be allocated a personal adviser when you make a claim for benefit. You may be obliged to attend a series of work-focused interviews with your personal adviser to discuss your work prospects. The first interview is eight weeks after your claim begins, followed by five further interviews over the next six months.
If you do not attend a WFI without good cause, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) can sanction you by deducting money from your benefit.
If you are already claiming and receiving incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance or income support (including situations where you are appealing a decision that you are not incapable of work) you may be asked to attend three work-focused interviews.
The personal adviser will encourage you to draw up a return-to-work action plan and offer you various forms of help which form part of a ‘choices’ package. Only attending the interview and drawing up the action plan will be compulsory. Claimants will not be forced to take work. This help includes:
If you are exempt from the personal capability assessment (PCA) or receive the highest rate care component of disability living allowance you will only have to attend the initial new claim work focused interview.
If, after your first interview it is decided that you are only likely to be on benefit for a short time you may be exempted from any more interviews.
The pathways pilot areas are as follows:
Argyll and Bute, Barnsley, Bridgend, County Durham, Cumbria, Cynon and Taff, Derbyshire, Doncaster, Durham, East Lancashire, Eastern Valleys, Gateshead and South Tyneside, Glasgow, Greater Mersey, Inverclyde, Lanarkshire and East Dunbarton, Lancashire West, Liverpool and the Wirral, Manchester, Trafford and Salford, Renfrewshire, Rhondda, Rotherham, Somerset, and Essex, Staffordshire, Sunderland, Swansea and West Wales, Tees Valley.
The Provider led districts allocated so far are in:
Birmingham and Solihull*, Black Country*, Central London, City and East London, Cornwall & Devon, Edinburgh, Lothian & Borders, Forth Valley, Fife & Tayside*; Greater Manchester East & West*, Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth, Lincolnshire and Rutland, Norfolk*, North Wales & Powys*, Nottinghamshire, South East Wales /Cardiff & Vale* and West Yorkshire.
Those areas marked with an asterisk will also take over support which is currently being provided by New Deal for Disabled People apart from support for those people with health conditions and disabilities who are harder to help .
Employment and support allowance (ESA) will replace incapacity benefit and income support paid on the grounds of incapacity for new claimants from October 2008. Existing IB and IS claimants will eventually move onto the new scheme. As yet there is no date for this transfer but it is unlikely to happen in the immediate future.
You will also be required to take part in work focused interviews as part of ESA. The rules for these will be similar to those for work focused interviews in the pathways to work areas.
If you are on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and are not claiming one of the other benefits mentioned in this factsheet you are not required to attend a work focused interview.
You can get help at a local advice centre, such as a citizen's advice bureau. You can get more information about this from our factsheet F15, Finding a local advice centre, which is available at www.disabilityalliance.org/f15.htm.
There is also more information about work focused interviews in Disability Alliance's Disability Rights handbook at www.disabilityalliance.org/drh33.htm.
For information on ESA see our factsheets at www.disabilityalliance.org/esa.htm.
You can obtain copies of our handbook or factsheets by contacting Disability Alliance on 020 7247 8776 (voice and minicom) or by fax on 020 7247 8765.
April 2008
