New Enterprise Allowance scheme - My story

I had a surprising letter from Housing Benefits yesterday, to say that I will get full rent and council tax benefit paid. I only expected tp get part paid, so it was a nice surprise.

They don't include NEA when working out income, just tax credits and anything else, I have a small pension.

After initially just getting a couple of small orders in, this week 3 large orders have come through. I had a bit of a panic because my daughter, who will help with large orders has gone on holiday, but its all on track to get them out on time.

As to the earlier posts regarding hours worked, I have spent lots of time this week emailing back and forward with these orders. I hadn't really anticipated this before orders started coming in. I definitely class that as part of my working hours, as an employee in a paid job would!!!

For those that want to know about HB and CTS as a self-employed person.
I asked the Housing Benefit Officer who frequents these boards, how they work out Housing Benefit and CTS for the newly Self-Employed, and this is what he said:

I ask for a projection of income - then use that figure for 3 months - 3 months time I ask for 3 months self employed income and expenditure - repeat every 3 months until I have 1 years self employed figures - once I have 1 years figure I use the last years figures to calculate the coming years benefit. Most benefit departments should use a similar method in calculating benefit entitlement for the newly self employed.

I can also confirm that my local council use this method too, as i have just spoken to them on the phone. They are sending me out a small form to fill in, an estimate of my first 13 weeks income from SE.

Day 2 of my course (it had to be the hottest day of the year, no air con and in a stuffy room at the top of the building, of course... hey ho) and I think it is really good. Lots to learn, humungous workpack to complete. Met my business adviser and arranged my appointment to discuss my business plan, cash flow and personal survival budget.

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There was so much messing around trying to get accepted for it (which took months and months) that by the time I was actually accepted the summer holidays were about to start - not good considering my target customer base was schools and colleges who I now cannot contact until September! Yep, no customer base until at least September!

Then when I signed off I was left with NO INCOME for the following 3 weeks, not even to live off, and so all I could do was promote my business through word of mouth, hand out business cards, make phone calls, etc and try to drum up some custom (which didn't go very well at all) whilst staying hungry.

Then I was told that although I qualified for Housing Benefit run-on it would be suspended the following month until I provide all requested data (which I don't even have yet) - I provided everything I've got several weeks ago and have still not heard anything from my local council - MY HOUSING BENEFIT IS STILL SUSPENDED and my landlord is freaking the (Text removed by MSE Forum Team) out - I'll be lucky if I haven't been evicted by this time next month!

On top of all this, after 5 weeks I received a letter from NEA asking for evidence that I have been "meaningfully engaged in self employment for more than 16 hours per week" - considering I had no income or funding for the business for the first 3 weeks this leaves just 2 weeks of active trading to prove yet I had very little money to put into the business during those 2 weeks as I have not (yet) had the NEA loan and to be quite honest I have no idea at all how to even apply for it. In fact, things have gone so badly I don't think I'll bother applying because if I can't pay it back then I'll just end up in debt (I was in debt for over 10 years and have only just managed to clear it, more debt is the last thing I need right now).

So, I've had to take all my documents to the council who are just leaving me in limbo with my HB suspended, at the same time I have to send those documents off by post to NEA who have not even acknowledged that they've received them and the council are also probably going to ask to see them again in a month or two's time when NEA are still in possession of them. Additionally, NEA have my bookings diary, my receipts/invoices, my accounts, etc and so I can't do anything with them until I get them back.

I registered for self assessment, was sent an activation code, etc and received a claim pack for WTC. However, this whole scheme has been such a complete mess and things have gone so badly I'm not sure if I would even be entitled to claim WTC if I can't prove that I've done any work. Additionally, I haven't set up self assessment yet because I'm pretty damn sure that A4E (who are handling NEA in my area - badly as usual) are probably going to try to kick me off NEA anyway and so I don't want to go ahead setting this all up if it's going to be a waste of time.

And to put the icing on the cake, I have received a letter from HMRC asking me to do a tax return even though I haven't even activated my self assessment yet. (Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

They may appear to be doing things more "by the book" than yours are, but they're definitely not doing it properly and additionally I have been severely misinformed about the whole scheme right from the start - as far as I can tell it has all been lies lies lies and I'm absolutely disgusted by it.

The mentoring was non-existent, they just sent me somewhere else for mentoring then when I saw my Jobcentre advisor she was of the opinion that I had NOT had any mentoring. So, despite having 8 weeks of mentoring from someone not even associated with NEA (who the NEA advisor sent me to) I had to have ANOTHER 8 weeks mentoring which basically took us near enough into the summer holidays - when the schools and colleges close - too late to contact them. They have completely undermined my business plan when they themselves approved that very same business plan.

Additionally, they have NOT provided any kind of support - I had to find my own mentor, they did not provide one and the only form of contact they have had with me since I started is to request evidence for the 6 week review (by post, not in person). Now they have all my documents and paperwork which I need to try to get the business going and I also need to supply them to other people who are inconveniently requesting to see them - the whole thing is a HUGE (Text removed by MSE Forum Team). How the (Text removed by MSE Forum Team) am I supposed to get the job done when they all want to keep snatching the paperwork, job diary, documents, records, etc away from me all the time? It's absolutely ridiculous.

The scheme has caused me way more problems than it has helped with. I'm 100% certain that if I had not bothered with NEA and had just signed off at the right time and gone it alone I would have been off to a much better start (apart from the Housing Benefit thing). NEA can only be described as problematic at best.

Even when I signed off JSA and over onto NEA it was a case of being messed around for months on end not knowing what was going on then walking into the jobcentre one day, signing off completely unexpectedly and just being left to it not knowing what happens next. And to make matters even worse no-one has provided me with the NEA loan referral document so I cannot even apply for the loan!

The whole thing is an utter disgrace and is actually making me feel extremely depressed. I wanted to go self-employed, not lose entitlement to all benefits and end up (Text removed by MSE Forum Team) homeless and having my income stopped. You try to do something with your life in this country and all they do is (Text removed by MSE Forum Team). It's no surprise that this country is completely (Text removed by MSE Forum Team) if this is how it works, they're driving it into the ground themselves and it's (Text removed by MSE Forum Team) poor pathetic.

As for claiming WTC, I feel completely and utterly disillusioned by the whole NEA scheme and don't know if i'm going to continue with it. If I make a claim now I'll probably end up being kicked off NEA in a few days anyway and so that'll just be another complete waste of time and will be just another problem to sort out.

For the same reason I'm reluctant to activate my self-assessment. I don't want to be registered as self employed, claiming WTC and having to do a tax return if they're just going to (Text removed by MSE Forum Team) me over anyway because then THEY will be making it look as though I'm trying to claim dishonestly due to their own absolutely mind-baffling incompetence.