Bipolar and lost with wrong advise please help!

danconet

Hi, i hope some one here can give me some good advise, i have been off work for a number of years with depression, i was getting income support and incapacity benefit.
then after some time i felt that i wanted to work and contacted the Richmond fellowship for help back to work.
i was told that i needed to work 16 hrs and i thought that i could do that at the time, so i started on working tax credit.. then about 4 months later, i became very unwell and could not work.
i was also to bad to tell the befits people when i stopped work, so now i have an over payment that i am going to deal with. but what i really need some help on is the new claim side of things as i have spent weeks being told different things over the phone about what claim i need.
i told them that i was unable to work but at times i can work and will be able to work hopefully, but they told me, "what is it can you work or can you not, there's no in betweens!".
so i have now started up my old claim of income support and incapacity benefit but i want to work when i can. is there any thing i can do to start work say under 16 hrs a week or even be self employed. being so fresh in to a claim.
i am just worried that i am on the wrong benefits as i do want to work but am so unwell most days that i cant do 16 but would love to try and not be restricted, but still need some help with money to get me off to the right start. sorry for the long winded post but thanks for reading,

dmg24

Permitted Work

eskimo26

Somebody gave you bad advise you can work up to 16 hours a week without effecting your IB benefit.

To quote .gov "Working while claiming Incapacity Benefit If you receive Incapacity Benefit, you may be able to do some types of work. This is called Permitted Work. If you earn money while you get Incapacity Benefit, this could affect income-related benefits you receive."


However as it states it may affect your IS because this is an income based benefit. I had a little snuffle round the web and it seems that earnings above £20 will affect your IS, the question is how much IS are you getting?


On the website i looked at the lady was only getting £2.50 IS top-up to her IB and preferred the 'extra money and boost to her esteem.'


Find out how much IS your getting then decide if its worth losing it.



Also a heads up after 12 months working in this way they will say your fit for work, my understanding is they should approach you at 11 months and give you an ultimatum of sorts. In this way its some what of a trial run i suppose but since there people are never reliable i'd keep an eye on the 11 month deadline yourself.


This is all conjecture i'm not a professional benefits adviser i wanted to have the information for myself so i did the research.


btw under the permitted work system you can be self employed too! This is obviously of huge benefit since you get to fit hours round symptoms.



Also i'm not sure if you can get back on IB, I know that if you receive income based IB (they pay NI for you) then they will likely put you on ESA. On the other hand if its normal IB you should be ok as i was told as long as you haven't been off it for years you apply for ESA and they auto shunt you back to IB. But tbh i've been told so much conflicting BS by the benefits people i wouldn't take it at face value based off just my single post. P: