Mandated onto Work & Health programme

Hi,

I have been reading and searching the forum for the last two days about this subject but there is a lot of conflicting advice on it.

I've been unemployed for nearly 2 years mainly due to me living in a crap seaside town with very few employment opportunities outside a few months seasonal work, at my next UC appointment I am going to be mandated onto the Work & Health programme, I do not know if I will be given a place yet, as I hear there are limited places, but I will begin the process at my next UC appointment and my name will go into the WHP hat.

This programme sounds like a nightmare, where you can be forced to do unpaid full time work under the cloak of "Gaining Experience..." in a job you probably have not interest in doing or pursuing, am I right in thinking this, that you can face sanctions to your benefit payments if you fail to comply and attend a work experience placement?

It seems the only way to avoid this scheme is to close down your UC claim and start a new claim 6 months later if I don't get regular employment by then, I am in the fortunate situation of being able to do this if I wanted to, if I was to close down my claim, am I right in thinking a period of 6 months would need to pass before a new claim would not be linked to an old UC claim?, and if I had started on the WHP the 15 month period you are on it would also cease if you stopped claiming UC and closed my claim?

Any advice on this is greatly appreciated, my head is spinning from all the reading I've done in the last 2 days...

I think you might have posted twice.

Caker wrote:I think you might have posted twice.

I first posted in here and then found the other section and thought it may be better in there...

24 months unemployment check.pdf
"using the number of days in any breaks between claims (only those less than 28 days each), to re-establish the correct
WHP eligibility date"
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/460725/response/1142387/attach/3/24%20months%20unemployment%20check.pdf
Read online https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/460725/response/1142387/attach/3/24%20months%20unemployment%20check.pdf
Via
'Linking Periods Work & Health Programme (WHP)'
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/linking_periods_work_health_prog#incoming-1142387
HT " 29 days to break the 24 month linking period." https://respectfulbenefits.forumotion.com/t3652-linking-periods-for-the-work-health-programme#9975