Counting previous activity obligations failures
The sanction imposed depends on how often the young person has failed to comply with their activity obligations in the previous 12 months while continuously getting Youth Payment.
For Youth Payment previous failures are only counted, if the failure occurred within the last 12 months, while continuously getting Youth Payment where the young person had activity obligations.
The 12-month count starts from the day the obligation failure is imposed. Each obligation failure has its own 12-month count.
Example
A client fails their first obligation on 1 June 2025. They fail another obligation on 1 October 2025, and have an obligation failure count of two. Their obligation failure count is reset to one on 1 June 2026, 12 months after they failed their first obligation.
Their obligation failure count will be reset to zero on 1 October 2026, 12 months after the second obligation failure.
Young person transfers between benefits
If a young person transfers between benefits where they have activity obligations (for example Youth Payment to Young Parent Payment) any activity obligations failures within the previous 12 months are still counted.
The count of activity obligations failures within 12 months will reset to zero for young people transferring to a benefit with or without activity obligations (for example Youth Payment to Jobseeker Support).
For more information see:
Calculating continuous receipt of benefit
To calculate continuous receipt of benefit, any employment for less than 10 working days is disregarded.
Legislation
- How number of failures is counted sections 240-242 Social Security Act 2018
- Sanctions: young person obligations sections 272-274 Social Security Act 2018
- Failure, and first, second, and third failure, defined for young person or young parent obligations section 268 Social Security Act 2018
- How young person satisfies obligation after failure to comply section 286 Social Security Act 2018
- Procedure for imposing sanctions for failure to comply with young person or young parent obligation section 287 Social Security Act 2018
- Effect of regrant of youth payment on incentive payment section 288 Social Security Act 2018
