Self employed and getting no help

Victoriajayne

You say you lost your job last January - was that Jan 2009 or 2010 ?
Had you claimed your full 182 days of contribution based JSA before you went self employed ?
Depending on how long you'd been signing on, I'm surprised the job centre didn't tell you about New Deal for the Self Employed (which now doesn't exist for most of the country), or Self Employment Credit, which is still available.

I'm currently on Contribution Based JSA - I do some casual work which all gets declared, and the guy I do the majority of the work for has a big security contract coming up in November, across various venues. He's suggested that I do some of the work for him on a self employed basis. I spoke to the linked advisor at Stafford Jobcentre, who said as long as the work is expected to last more than 5 weeks, I can sign off JSA, register with HMRC as self employed, and claim self employment credit instead, which is £50 a week for the first 16 weeks of self employment.
So as of mid November, I'm going to give self employment a go I think.

robbybobson

Hi Victoria,

No I was not on jobseekers for the full 13 weeks. I started self employment soon after going on it. I declared everything and only made a few hundred over the first few months but after many weeks of signing on we had not received anything. It was taking them 4-6 weeks to go through my monthly earnings every time I sent them through. In the end I gave up and came off it. I has started getting a bit more work and it was obvious to me that the job seekers is an all or nothing kind of deal. You have to be available to look for work full time. So no doing any work in the mean time. "you have been doing some work?! No No No you won't be available for work if you are doing work!"

The problem is they would place me in a full time job earning £6 per hour. I can earn anything from £12 to £30 per hour doing my freelance work but there is not enough of it to work full time. This is where I get shot down. If I don't work 30 hours a week then its a problem for tax credits etc.

So full time job doing on minimum wage = help from government

self employment earning the same annual wage as above but not working full time due to lack of available work = no help.

I fear I may be stuck in the netherworld between 16 hours a week and 30 hours a week.

Less than 16 = stay on job seekers and more than 30 = working tax credit.

I suppose I can say I work more than 30 hours a week if I count looking for work as well as doing actual work. Some weeks I may work 60 hours and others 20.

Will try and working tax credits and see where I get I suppose.

Good luck with you self employment.

Murgatroyd21

If one of you is over 25, S/E for at least 30hrs pw with an estimated net joint profit of say £8000 for the year you could potentially get about £76pw wtc.

robbybobson

That would be great if I could. Does it matter how many hours your partner works? My other half does the Avon and a bit of freelance work here and there occasionally but probably doesn't work 30 hours a week.