The Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance (Work Search and Work Availability Requirements: limitations) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024 - screening

The overall objectives of Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance are to support people who are on a low income or out of work. They provide claimants with the support they need to prepare for work, move into work, or to earn more if already in work.

Where a claimant has previously carried out work of a particular nature, or at a particular level of remuneration, they may wish to secure employment in the same field or to a similar level of remuneration. Current Universal Credit (UC) and Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) legislation allows for this. It includes within the limitations on a work search requirement and a work availability requirement provision requiring the Department, for a period of time, to limit work search and work availability requirements to work of a similar nature or level of remuneration if the Department is satisfied that the claimant will have reasonable prospects of obtaining paid work, despite that limitation. The period of time is known as ‘the permitted period’. At present the permitted period under the UC and JSA legislation is three months. The changes being progressed under these Regulations will reduce (in line with changes already made in the rest of the UK by the Department for Work and Pensions) the maximum permitted period from three months to four weeks.