Recording decisions on a dispute

You must record the decision in OBMAN that you have made as a 'Case Managers Review'. The following decisions must be recorded:

• Upheld - if you believe that the decision relating to an activity obligations failure or sanction being imposed was correct you must record this as 'dispute upheld'. The activity obligations failure will be counted.
• Withdrawn - a young person may, after disputing the activity obligations failure, decide to recomply before the sanction is imposed, or may withdraw their dispute and not recomply. In these cases you must record that the dispute has been withdrawn. The activity obligations failure will be counted.
• Overturned - when you believe that the young person had a good and sufficient reason or that they did not fail their activity obligations you must record this as activity obligations failure overturned. The activity obligations failure will not be counted.

In all cases you must advise the young people of the outcome of their dispute. A letter is automatically sent to the young person.

If the young person does not agree with your decision, they can still request a formal Review of Decision. They must do this in writing. The Review of Decision process should be followed.

Note if the activity obligations failure was initiated against the wrong person the status can be changed to 'activity obligations failure in error'. No letter is sent when the obligations status is changed to 'activity obligations failure in error'.

Review of Decisions for activity obligations failures are recorded in HIYA. However, the outcome of the review must be recorded in OBMAN. This will ensure that the benefit status can be resumed or regranted in SWIFTT, depending on the outcome of the review.

Note that if the Review of Decision process finds that the originally recorded 'upheld' outcome should be changed to overturned, you will need to make this change in OBMAN.

For more information see:

• The disputes process
• Disputes and reviews of an activity obligations failure