ESA + Permitted Work

sunnyone

Lakelady wrote: »

That is good news. With IB you can only earn £20 per week for an indefinite period, so £95 pw is a bonus. It used to be called therapeutic earings and you`re right just a couple of hours a week do do you good.

This is wrong, the permited work scheme was basicly the same for IB but it was limited to 52 weeks and then you had to decide on wether to come off IB and work or give up the permited work though a poster did claim to have been on it much longer.

yappycat

I guess that for people receiving IB point 5 mentioned in the OP would apply:

If you are exempt from the IB/IS personal capability assessment - you can work for an unlimited period, if the work is for less than 16 hours a week and your earnings do not exceed £95 a week after deductions.

I assume that's the 'old' equivalent of receiving ESA and being placed in the support group.

Lakelady_2

sunnyone wrote: »

This is wrong, the permited work scheme was basicly the same for IB but it was limited to 52 weeks and then you had to decide on wether to come off IB and work or give up the permited work though a poster did claim to have been on it much longer.

No what I said is right, you are able to get £20 a week indefinitely.

DX2

Under the 'Permitted Work' rules you can:

• work for less than 16 hours a week, on average, with earnings up to and including £95.00 a week for a 52 week period
• work for less than 16 hours a week, on average, and earn up to and including £95.00 a week for as long as your illness or disability is considered sufficiently severe that you are treated as meeting the threshold of incapacity without undergoing a medical assessment
• work for earnings of up to and including £20.00 a week for an unlimited period, or
• do 'Supported Permitted Work' and earn up to £95.00 a week for an unlimited period provided you continue to satisfy the 'Supported Permitted Work' criteria

yappycat

Lakelady wrote: »

No what I said is right, you are able to get £20 a week indefinitely.

Lakelady is correct - on IB/ESA you can do 52 weeks of permitted work (in which you can earn up to 395pw working less than 16h pw) after 52 weeks you'll get a letter informing you that your 52 week permitted work 'allowance' is over and you'll be given 3 options:

1) reduce your hours so that your earning drop to £20 pw or less
2) carry on working for up to £95 pw and lose all or part of your benefit.
3) continue permitted work up to £95 pw but only if it is 'supported permitted work' supervised by someone who is employed by a public or local authority, a community interest organisation or voluntary organisation which provides or finds work for people with disabilities.

However if you satisfy condition 5 (for IB) or condition 6 (for ESA) as quoted in post#1 you can carry on permitted work indefinitely providing you work less than 16 hours pw, and earn less than £95pw.

In the letter I got to tell me my permitted work period had ended there was no mention of any other options open to me beyond the first 3, it was only when I started digging about for info that I found that there were exceptions.
I think it's important that people know about this as the first person I spoke to at the DSS when I called to query didn't realise that there were any further options other than what were quoted in the letter they had sent to me.

sunnyone

Lakelady wrote: »

No what I said is right, you are able to get £20 a week indefinitely.

wrong, DX2 has posted the correct criteria information and if like me you are exempt from the PCA or you fulfil the criteria for "supported permitted work" you can earn over £20 per week indefinitetly.

yappycat

In fairness I think Lakelady is talking about permitted work only for people on IB who do not have exemption from the PCA (or in the case of ESA are not in the support group).
Which further highlights the need for the exempting conditions to be made more widely known amongst people claiming these benefits and the advisors at the DSS.

sunnyone

yappycat wrote: »

In fairness I think Lakelady is talking about permitted work only for people on IB who do not have exemption from the PCA (or in the case of ESA are not in the support group).
Which further highlights the need for the exempting conditions to be made more widely known amongst people claiming these benefits and the advisors at the DSS.

No she is wrong because she said that you could only earn £20 pw indefinately while on IB and she welcomed the change when infact their has been no change (That is good news. With IB you can only earn £20 per week for an indefinite period), the biggest way to be exempt (which is why Im exempt) is extremly well know and its having the highest rate of DLA care componant which also means that any pensions are not taken into account (though not the reason why mine is not taken into account).

yappycat

sunnyone wrote: »

...the biggest way to be exempt (which is why Im exempt) is extremly well know and its having the highest rate of DLA care componant which also means that any pensions are not taken into account (though not the reason why mine is not taken into account).

Exemption from the limitations on doing permitted work (on ESA) cannot be *that* well known because when I called the DSS to ask about being possibly exempt I was told by the advisor that she'd 'never heard' of someone being exempt by way of being placed in the support group and had to refer my query to someone else who called me back the next day. My local CAB were just as blank when I made enquiries with them.
If being on HR Care component of DLA means that you are exempt from the PCA and thus exempt from the limitations affecting permitted work and that's widely known then that's fair enough. However I only get MR Care and have been placed in the ESA support group which effectively allows me to carry on with my permitted work at the higher rate. The fact that I was in receipt of DLA was never a factor in the way the medically assessed descriptors were scored, and nor did it feature in my discussion with judge and doctor at the appeal tribunal.

To avoid confusing anyone who might actually look at this thread for useful info, the options regarding permitted work (whether you receive IB or ESA) are quoted in post #1 and despite the rules governing permitted work and IB perhaps being common knowledge, based on personal experience I am not convinced that the same can be said for ESA.

Tara100

Hello

I have been doing permitted work since the end of August 2010, and have stopped working for my employer yesterday. (I am in the ESA work related group)

I would like to get another job, but wondered what effects my break in work may have on my 52 week permitted work allowance.
Can anyone tell me if the claim restarts, or does my current allowance just continue until Aug 2011 independently of when I begin working again?

Many thanks in advance
Tara