Benefits and going back to work

spdavies

Dear all,
I am looking for advice. My wife has been on incapacity benefit for the last 3 years due to her Arthritis and Lupus based condition. The nature of her condition means that she is sometimes better than others and is sometimes capable of working and sometimes not. We have made this completely clear to the Benefits office and been 100% up front all along.
My wife has recently been approached by someone who is asking if she could do some part time work for her from home. This is something that she is keen to do but clearly does not want to infringe the conditions of the incapacity benefit.
Now i know that IB is there for those who are not capable of working, but i guess my question is whether there is some kind of half way house benefit or permitted work allowance for those can can do some work?
If my wife accepts the work it will ultimately only earn us about 50% of what we get on incapacity benfit so we would actually be worse off if she takes it and comes off IB. I can't help feeling that this isn't right and that i must be missing something???
I don't think that we would be entitled to a working tax credit either as I earn over the £40k threshold.

All thoughts and advice welcomed.

stazi

Yes, your wife can do Permitted Work for up to 52 weeks. More info is here-
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/FinancialSupport/IncapacityBenefit/DG_10020667

Indie_Kid

spdavies wrote: »

I don't think that we would be entitled to a working tax credit either as I earn over the £40k threshold.

All thoughts and advice welcomed.

The cut off for WTC is around 18k. However, that does depend on your circumstances.

spdavies

Stazi - thanks for the adice that's really useful..

The website says:

"Under the Permitted Work rules you can:

• work for less than 16 hours a week on average, with earnings up to £93.00 a week for 52 weeks
• work for less than 16 hours a week, on average, and earn up to £93.00 a week for as long as your illness or disability is considered so severe that you are meeting the threshold of incapacity without having a medical assessment
• work and earn up to £20 a week, at any time, for as long as you are receiving Incapacity Benefit
• do Supported Permitted Work and earn up to £93.00 a week for as long as you are receiving Incapacity Benefit"

Ok so i think i understand all of that - One question though is what is the significnace of the 52 weeks? What happens after that? Does the benefit get cancelled/reviewed or would she have to stop work???
Any thoughts?

Robbie64

When the 52 week time limit is reached she has to either stop the work, reduce the work she does so it pays £20 or less or end her benefit claim. She will then not be able to undertake any more permitted work for a further 52 weeks.

Robbie64

The significance of the 52 weeks is that it is considered to be long enough to enable a person to decide if they are able to work so that they can move off IB (or ESA) and into full time work or at least work 16 hours (which would qualify her to claim tax credits though given your income it is unlikely anything would be paid).

spdavies

Ok thank you for the advice.

One further question - Is any of this likely to change with the conservative cuts and policy changes and thier mission to get people back to work? HAs anything been announced??

Robbie64

The major development over the next few years is that everyone claiming Incapacity Benefit will be migrated to the new Employment and Support Allowance. The migration begins in October this year in Burnley and Aberdeen and then goes UK wide from early next year. Claims will be migrated at the point the person would normally be reassessed under existing IB rules.

ESA is a more work focussed benefit and as a result the Work Capability Assessment under ESA is seen as more stricter than the Personal Capability Assessment under IB. The amount of people who 'fail' the WCA is a lot more than the amount who 'fail' the PCA.

The main thrust of getting more people back into work appears to be changing the goalposts in how incapacity for work is measured and subsequently closing claims rather than increasing support to help those on existing benefits move back into work.