strange letters from the job center.

looby75

My sister is currently receiving income based JSA after being made redundant about 4 months ago, last week (1st Nov) she had a interview at her local job centre to "review her current situation" She has recently discovered that she is pregnant and mentioned this to the person who was interviewing her as she wanted advice on whether or not she had an obligation to inform prospective employers she is expecting. He advised her on this and also told her he would try to find out if she is now entitled to any extra benefits because she is pregnant.

Today she received a letter dated 2nd November in forming her that as of the 31st October she would be receiving £82 (and something pence) a week £57 (something pence) for income based JSA and £24.50 because she is disabled! She has never tried to claim for any kind of disability the only thing that has changed is that she is pregnant.

Is this "disability" payment because of her pregnancy, has anyone else ever had anything like this. She is going to take the letter with her when she goes to sign on next Monday to ask about it but she doesn't want to rock the boat if it is money she is entitled to as anything she has queried in the past has caused delays in her getting paid. She doesn't live with her boyfriend so her JSA is the only money she has to live on at the moment and if it got stopped while it was being looked into she would be totally up the creek.

Scarlett1

that dont sound right to me, I think that you can get incapacity benefit if you cant work through a pregnancy related illness, but being pregnant isnt a disability and dont think it would be paid through JSA

she should contact the DWP asap cause if they pay it in error, they will want to reclaim it back xx

kabie

I remembered that IB can be applicable in certain circumstances so I googled and found:
"Incapacity Benefit
If you are not entitled to get either SMP or MA, you may be able to get some Incapacity Benefit instead. This will depend on your National Insurance contributions in recent years. Your maternity certificate (form MATB1) is accepted as evidence of incapacity for work for the period starting six weeks before the week the baby is due, to 14 days after the date on which the baby is born. "

Sounds like she wouldn't be far enough along for that though? Having a look around it seems rather complicated and taking into account she's already getting IS it's bound to be even more confusing. Hopefully they'll sort it out when she goes in, perhaps it's a misunderstanding about how many weeks pregnant she is?
If she's still on IS at the 29th week of pregnancy or after don't forget about a maternity grant.

looby75

kabie wrote:

I remembered that IB can be applicable in certain circumstances so I googled and found:
"Incapacity Benefit
If you are not entitled to get either SMP or MA, you may be able to get some Incapacity Benefit instead. This will depend on your National Insurance contributions in recent years. Your maternity certificate (form MATB1) is accepted as evidence of incapacity for work for the period starting six weeks before the week the baby is due, to 14 days after the date on which the baby is born. "

Sounds like she wouldn't be far enough along for that though? Having a look around it seems rather complicated and taking into account she's already getting IS it's bound to be even more confusing. Hopefully they'll sort it out when she goes in, perhaps it's a misunderstanding about how many weeks pregnant she is?
If she's still on IS at the 29th week of pregnancy or after don't forget about a maternity grant.

She wouldn't be far enough on yet, she's only about 10 weeks and is still on JSA not IS. The only reason she mentioned it at the interview was because she has some job interviews coming up and wanted to know if she has to, or even if she should mention she is pregnant.

She also got a letter today saying that from the 11th Jan she will be switching from contributions based JSA to income based but when she first was made redundant she was told she couldn't get contributions based JSA because she hadn't made enough NI contributions the year before.

She's going to take the letters with her next Monday to see what it's all about, it's so frustrating though because this will probably end up with her claim being messed up again and it's only just been put right from the last mistake the DWP made :mad: She attends every interview she's asked to, gives all the relevant information correctly and on time yet they still keep managing to mess what should be a straight forward JSA claim up!

Thanks for your advice Scarlett and Kabie.

hjb123

I would query it definately - doesnt sound right to me!

The £24.50 you mention is the same amount as I got added as a disability premium when they were trying to work out how much I was getting in benefits and how much you needed to live on - well it was lost in the jargon somewhere!

looby75

Thanks Helen. It's madness because she didn't ask for any extra money it was the bloke who interviewed her who said he would look to see if she could get any extra, my sis is still trying to get a job! She's looking for a temp job to see her through christmas and the new year, after that she will be moving in with her boyfriend and getting ready for the baby's arrival so won't need to claim anything.

hjb123

I would tell her to make sure that if they decided that she had had it paid wrongly that she would be in a position to pay it back - in other words dont go spending it quite yet!

Am sure there will be some explanation for it - check out this website on what you are entitled to during/after pregnancy

looby75

Thanks for that, I'll pass the link on. She already said that she's going to put any extra she gets to one side JIC.

clairec79

Someone's messed up, pregnancy is not a disability - and in general even with complications doesn't qualify for the disability premiums due to the fact they resolve afterwards so don't last long enough.

The only extra thing (at this stage) is milk tokens - at 29 weeks she'll get a one off payment of £500 - she'll have to apply for it but that's the earliest - can be claimed up till when baby is 3 months old

looby75

What I don't understand is how this mistake was made in the first place, she didn't fill any forms in, they didn't ask for docs details or anything like that so how on earth could this "disability" allowance have been added in the first place. I thought you had to practically jump through hoops and wait months to get any kind of disability benefit

suffolkb

I`m in dispute with the DWP. I am an alcoholic who has caused severe heart failure through my drinking.My fault,I know. When I finally got myself straight,I registered as unemployed. They registered me as disabled,and I told them on the `phone, and went round to see them, that I didn`t really think I was disabled (now I do as it has progressed). They told me that it just meant that I was at a "disadvantage in finding a job" Now they say,after 3 years working on min wage,that I am not disabled and want nearly £3,000 in WTC back. I have asked for all records and `phone transcripts so that I can go to the CAB. They seem to have gone quiet.