New Enterprise Allowance scheme - My story

Andy2013

Yeah I had a few payment issues and I used to go into my JC and speak to him in person as this would get things done quicker, although I must say he was very good and helped me a lot.

I know its a way of but the transition between the £65 and £33 at the 13 week stage causes a lot of people a problem and my payments stopped for 4 weeks as they " forgot" to amend the payments and thought I had finished altogether.

Just worth you knowing in advance.

This_Year

Andy2013 wrote: »

Yeah I had a few payment issues and I used to go into my JC and speak to him in person as this would get things done quicker, although I must say he was very good and helped me a lot.

I know its a way of but the transition between the £65 and £33 at the 13 week stage causes a lot of people a problem and my payments stopped for 4 weeks as they " forgot" to amend the payments and thought I had finished altogether.

Just worth you knowing in advance.

Thanks for that, I've just set a reminder to check this (if I don't set a reminder it probably won't happen as there's so much other stuff whirling around my head at the moment! LOL)

Andy2013

I love a good reminder, and my office wall is covered in post-it notes, its like a collage but it does get stuff done .

treenie01

I would set a reminder but as I still have no idea when I'm getting the payments from, I can't set a reminder to check when they change.

I'm so sick of it. I've had to turn work down today because I have no money to get to it.

BigAl127

After 3 weeks, I ended up ringing NEA only to find they had not received anything from the Jobcentre informing them that i'd started. My advisor had supposedly sent the relevant forms through to another department, and they had supposedly faxed everything through to NEA, who said there wasn't anything on their system. After a few more phone calls to the Jobcentre manager everything was re-sent to NEA and I started receiving my payments after 5 weeks. All backdated.

You can ring the NEA Customer Helpline on 0845 602 8244 to see if you're on theirsystem yet, and if so, when payments should be made and how much for.

treenie01

I finally got a call back from my job centre adviser and apparently the system won't accept my national insurance number which is what is causing the hold up. They're going to put it through on a temporary number apparently which I have to say I'm not convinced about as that seems like a recipe for a disaster to me.

On the plus side the loan providers called me yesterday. He asked me why I'd only asked for £600. I told him that my mentor told us only to ask for what we will actually need. He said I may as well take the whole £1000 as I won't get another chance! He jut needs to email me the documents today so hopefully I'll get them before I go away this afternoon and can get them in the post.

Just hoping the whole ni mess up won't delay this as well

Andy2013

The NI issue will probably cause an issue down the line somewhere as putting in emergency codes for tax and NI is in the long run never a good thing and surely if there is a genuine problem with your NI number than HMRC or the JC payments should also have picked up problems prior to this so don't ignore this and contact HMRC asap to get this sorted.

As for the loan remember its a loan, it has to be paid back and also with a relatively high APR which is why I didn't accept the one I was offered , so don't think they are doing you favours by offering you more, its in there interest to give you the most finance possible because you have to pay it back plus interest and that just adds pressure to a small business , so be careful.

Also for those whose finance's are not completely knackered remember we have things called " banks" and contrary to belief they are lending to small businesses and especially those backed by the NEA scheme as a lot see this as some kind of surety .

Bunni

Hi, don't know if anyone can help. Just starting the move from JSA to NEA. So far been fantastic experience, loads of help from advisor and my job centre advisor. So much support has been fantastic. However I am getting confused, i have to register as self employed from December, however my Job centre advisor is saying the job centre pays my national insurance as I have to be with them paying it to qualify. However the mentor emailed saying I must contact HMRC and start paying my national insurance myself. Both are adamant they are correct. Anyone else clarify? Job centre are saying the whole point is its like a benefit and they pay my contributions, but I don't want to get 6 months down the line and owe loads of national insurance!
Confused...

BigAl127

As soon as I started my self-employment in March 2013, I registered with HMRC, and a couple of weeks ago I received a bill for Class 2 N.I. for £75.50 (2 weeks @£2.65 + 26 weeks @ £2.70) payable by the end of Jan 2014. The Jobcentre certainly haven't paid mine.

Unless, this is now one of the recent changes to NEA i'd say your mentor is correct.

However, if you earn less than £5,725 per year you can apply for a Certificate of Small Earnings Exception and not pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions. However, you might decide to carry on paying them voluntarily to keep your entitlement to the State Pension and other benefits.

pinkypoopydoo

Bunni wrote: »

Hi, don't know if anyone can help. Just starting the move from JSA to NEA. So far been fantastic experience, loads of help from advisor and my job centre advisor. So much support has been fantastic. However I am getting confused, i have to register as self employed from December, however my Job centre advisor is saying the job centre pays my national insurance as I have to be with them paying it to qualify. However the mentor emailed saying I must contact HMRC and start paying my national insurance myself. Both are adamant they are correct. Anyone else clarify? Job centre are saying the whole point is its like a benefit and they pay my contributions, but I don't want to get 6 months down the line and owe loads of national insurance!
Confused...

You will need to register with HMRC as soon as you become self employed, not once your NEA payment stop.

All the details are here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/register-selfemp.htm

My NI payments are paid monthly, and are £10-odds, nothing massive, and HMRC dealt with it all very quickly.