Youth activity obligations failures

If a young partner fails to comply with their youth activity obligations, an activity obligations failure needs to be considered.

The service provider or Work and Income 'in-house' service:

• must be satisfied the young partner would have had no good and sufficient reason for their failure and
• if the young partner has no good and sufficient reason, recommend an activity obligations failure be imposed

The Youth Service Support Unit (YSSU):

• makes the decision to apply a sanction, based on the recommendation of the service provider or Work and Income 'in-house' service and
• initiates the activity obligations failure in the system

If it is decided that the young partner has failed their activity obligations, the YSSU will initiate an activity obligations failure. The young partner will then be notified by text message (where they have consented to be contacted in this way) or letter that:

• an obligations failure has occurred
• a sanction has been imposed and
• they have 5 working days to recomply before their payments are affected

All young people have a 5 working day notice period to dispute or recomply before the sanction is imposed. If a young person recomplies within the 5 working day notice period their benefit is not sanctioned but the activity obligations failure is recorded.