Failure to attend initial Face to Face meeting information

Here is the procedure that Providers have to go through if you refuse to attend a Face to Face meeting. They have no power to make you attend. If you refuse to attend after all their efforts to make you do so, they will refer you back to the Jobcentre as a "Did not attend".

Failure To Attend Initial Face To Face:

2.34. Should your initial engagement attempt be unsuccessful, you must make repeated attempts to engage with your Potential Participant before the 30th working day from the referral.

2.35. You should check for any advanced support needs from information shared and tailor your initial engagement accordingly. In the instance that your Potential Participant has failed to attend the initial meeting, you must contact them to discuss if there were any issues which prevented them from being able to attend and make arrangements for another Face to Face meeting. A variety of communication methods should be used to do this if necessary. If some of these are proving to be unsuccessful, you may wish to contact the Jobcentre Plus work coach to ensure that the details you have received are correct.

2.36. If you do not get a response from your Potential Participant, you must continue to book an Initial Face to Face Meeting and notify your Potential Participant via other methods such as email or post, with enough advance notice to facilitate your Potential Participant being able to attend the specified date and time.

2.37. You can choose the communication methods for arranging the Initial Face to Face Meeting, and may wish to utilise more than one to encourage attendance, including reminders in advance of the meeting.

2.38. These steps should be repeated several times should your Potential Participant repeatedly fail to attend their Initial Face to Face meeting.

2.39. Where your Potential Participant does not attend the initial meeting and you have made repeated attempts to conduct it, you may consider setting it as a mandatory activity. The intent of mandating your Potential Participant to the initial meeting is to encourage attendance, and must only be considered where they have not demonstrated engagement voluntarily and there are no known challenges that would prevent them from taking part. These challenges may include advanced support or where meetings have been scheduled outside of agreed work availability restrictions.

2.41. Where you have made repeated attempts to engage with your Potential Participant and they have not attended an Initial Face to Face Meeting after 30 working days from the date of the PRaP referral, then you must close the referral as a “Did not Attend” on PRaP.

Please Note: If you have raised a compliance doubt after mandating your Potential Participant to an Initial Face to Face Meeting, and they have not attended at 30 days, you must notify DWP that there is no longer a requirement for the Potential Participant to undertake the mandatory activity of the compliance condition you set using form UCD604.

2.42. It is only at this stage that you can close the PRaP referral as “Did not Attend”.

2.43. The claimant will then be referred back to their Jobcentre Plus work coach, and may subsequently become a new referral to Restart.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restart-provider-guidance/chapter-2-referral-process-and-initial-engagement#:~:text=A%20Participant%20cannot%20start%20on,received%20within%202%20working%20days.

Thanks fo that Archangel, & very useful to know. This whole sysetm is purposley designed to frustarte and worry people into submission imo. The above gives us all back some control. When we get the never ending SHEEP must do this etc, etc.

This is a classic: 2.35. You should check for any advanced support needs from information shared and tailor your initial engagement accordingly

I wonder what year they will start using that logic then. Ive had to remind dwp and providers also, until i was nearly blue in the face about my health needs.

2.39. Where your Potential Participant does not attend the initial meeting and you have made repeated attempts to conduct it, you may consider setting it as a mandatory activity.

In order for them to be able to issue a MAN there has to be a start date on their contract with the DWP for that individual claimant. As it's the provider that enters the start date on their contract with the DWP and neither party bothers to let any claimant officially know what Day 1 is, then where is the proof that a provider can even issue a MAN?