Obviously you want to reclaim Jobseeker's Allowance as soon as possible. But here’s the thing…
If you've been sanctioned as well, the sanction you’ve already been given kicks in when you start this new claim. Obviously it can’t kick in any sooner as you’re not getting any benefit to be sanctioned from. So when you claim the Jobseeker's Allowance you won’t actually get any benefit straight away.
The (only) good news is that the length of the sanction is reduced (basically) by the length of time between when your old claim was ended and your new claim is started. It’s sort of like the gap before you claimed again counts as part of the sanction.
 Sonya’s
was given a 4 week sanction and her old Jobseeker's Allowance
award wasn’t paid after 11th January. Her sanction is therefore
due to finish on 8th February. She makes a new claim for
Jobseeker's Allowance on 25th January. You might think that she
will not get any money for 4 weeks, until after 22nd February. But
in fact the gap in between is taken into account, and she should
start getting paid after 8th February. |
There may be another problem if your previous award ended because you didn't participate in an interview. There is a possibility that you will have your new claim sanctioned from the outset, because of your failure to participate in the interview on the previous claim. I'm currently looking into this and will update this page as soon as I get a clearer answer for you.