New Enterprise Allowance scheme - My story

treenie01

Terryfied - my nea payments got messed up. I got put on a temporary nino because they couldn't get the payments to go through.

My mentor isn't great. I've asked him loads of stuff about how to market myself but not getting anywhere. I fear I'm going to end up giving up and getting a full time job that I have no interest in because my business just doesn't seem to be taking off at all

Andy2013

treenie01 its down to you to make it work, no mentor is going to do that and any questions you have can be answered here or other forums.

What issues are you having , see if anyone here can help, starting out is really hard and most days it seems easier to give up but there could be answers that can make it work.

Honestly at this current time starting a business is almost suicide unless you have done enough research and financial forecasts to know that it is possible , and if you have then fight like hell to make it work, it will be tough but the results could be amazing.

The alternative is to work 40 hours a week for minimum wage in a job you despise

Talk to us we are all in a similar boat , we all need help.

spend_thrift

I was coming to the end of my JSA entitlement when my job centre advisor out of the blue suggested this scheme. I had been open with him from the start that what I do for a job (editor) could be done freelance, but he didn't mention the scheme until this point. I was a little surprised but still jumped at the chance.

My experience has been very mixed. Once I made it onto the scheme I had an introductory workshop that was quite useful (and mandatory), where we were told about how the scheme would run, and were given a chance to "network" with the other half-dozen people in the same boat at the workshop, which was of limited use since we all had wildly varying business ideas (cycle hire company, commercial cleaning, import/export, and editing to name a few).

After that we were told that our actual mentor (not the guy running the course who was actually very good) would be in touch within the next couple of weeks to start the 8 weeks mentoring programme. This - for me - is where things went rapidly downhill. My mentor was AWFUL. I had to chase her several times, including calling her 15 minutes after a session was due to start only to be told that she was on another call, and calling her after a session she missed entirely to try to rearrange, only to be told that we would skip that session. At the end of the 8 weeks I was supposed to attend another workshop to meet up with the others from my cohort (I presume) and have another chance to network. Several weeks went by and I heard nothing so I chased my mentor. She had clearly forgotten about it and booked me in for a one-to-one session with her instead.

When I turned up for the one-to-one session at a different job centre to my usual one, I was told by the job centre manager that my mentor had not booked a room and there would be no meeting. I called my mentor and we had a very awkward conversation where she suggested I meet her in McDonalds to sign off the remaining forms. I refused and instead went to her offices in central London the following day, where she kept me waiting for 20 minutes, was incredibly hostile and rude, and rolled her eyes at me when I asked for the forms to claim the travel expenses she promised would be paid. :mad: She even made up the dates / times of our mentoring sessions in front of me! I signed because I thought I needed to do so to receive payment, but later discovered this form-signing exercise was so *she* could receive payment for completing the course.

I was offered the loan, which I turned down, and further mentoring with her as a part of the ongoing support element of the programme, which I declined. :eek:

After that I spoke to my job centre advisor and started to receive payments of £65 per week. That was in September, and everything seemed to be going fine until my payments stopped on 9 December. I am in the process of chasing this up, but it is extremely difficult. I have been passed from one call centre to another, and the only information online is in the form of press releases advertising the programme and discussing statistics. There is nothing for claimants.

I used to write about small business support for a living, so I am familiar with BusinessLink and GOV.UK (the Frankenstein's monster that all the various government-funded websites have become). Yet, even with that somewhat specialist background I am struggling to find anything on the NEA aimed at recipients, and even less on how to chase up non-payment of my allowance.

In short: If you have no intention of taking the extremely expensive loan, and you can get by without the £1,274 allowance over 6 months I would look elsewhere for business start-up support. This is a little-known scheme that the government seems to be going out of its way to hide, run by inept, uninterested and downright rude "mentors". By far the most useful element for me was the initial 3-hour workshop, and if I could go back and do it all again, I would drop out after attending that.

Also, not mentioned anywhere is that you will be required to attend several ad hoc meetings with your job centre advisor while you are receiving payment to check that you are trading. These are mandatory and they can stop your payments if you do not attend.

One last incredible point is that all the time I was writing my business plan and preparing to start trading I was still required to spend 14 hours per week job hunting. I was also encouraged by both mentors on the scheme that if I found a client for my business to wait to tell the job centre until after I had signed off, in case they signed me off early and I was no longer entitled to be on the scheme. The two schemes seem to run in opposition to each other.

Andy2013

....................... sorry did I write this in my sleep as it echoes most of my opinions , very similar all round and a shame that yet another poor sole has had this shambles of a scheme to deal with.

spend_thrift

I can believe it Andy2013 - I would have been very surprised if I had been the only one to feel this way.

I gave up trying to get anywhere on the phone, so I went to my job centre in person to see if I could sort it. The man on the front desk hadn't even heard of the New Enterprise Allowance.

When I finally got to speak to my JCP he told me that he'd warned me back in the summer that this would happen. Apparently the switch over from the higher rate of £65 to the lower rate of £33 is not automatic, and your JCP has to do it for you. Mine forgot :mad: He claimed that it was because it had been "hectic" there lately, but even he looked embarrassed when he said that because it was so quiet in the place you could see tumbleweed rolling around the room.

Now I have to make an appointment tomorrow to go and see him and get it reinstated. No idea how long that will take, since tomorrow is just calling him to make the appointment to see him to discuss reinstating it. :wall:

They really make you earn that £33!

Andy2013

I posted a similar post back in the summer when I also had issues going from the higher rate onto the lower £33 and indeed it is not automatic but no one tells you that until the money stops.

As hopeless as NEA was for me , the JC boss man I went through was very helpful and had my payments started again later that day when he had spoken to the payments team but my actual job centre advisor was totally useless and didn't know his !!! from his elbow , and I got used to blank expressions when I asked a question.

6 months have know passed since I finished the scheme and business is still going well but I am no worse of for not being on it anymore, in fact I would not even know I had been and that is a shame because in theory the mentoring and advise should have been something we miss when we leave but as I didn't get any you cant miss what you didn't have.

I do worry that to many start ups are failing because a lot of people do need a push and help which is offered by NEA , but of the 6 on my induction back in November 2012 , only I am still self employed and the other 5 are either on JSA again or in part time employment elsewhere , and they all blame the lack of help and guidance that was offered prior to them joining NEA , but never actually came to anything in practise.

spend_thrift

It is a shame Andy2013 - it feels like they could just hand out the money at the start in the form of one single grant cheque and then leave us to it and we'd be in about the same position we're in now. It must be soul-destroying for the few good mentors out there knowing that they're fighting such an uphill battle against the bad mentors and the general apathy shown by the JC.

Mind you, I'm being generous in assuming that there are some good mentors out there on the scheme. So far everybody seems to have had bad ones.

Neanovicetobe

Terrifyed, please update us on your situation. It is very frightening.I hope you are ok.

My business plan just got approved a week ago.

I have to admit my motivation to get into NEA was that my JSA was running until February and I couldn't stomach the jobcentre appointment anymore and using their useless jobmatch application to log in my job searches.

I have a new JobCentre advisor who is amazing and very helpful, but the one I had before was just useless though I had a pleasant interaction with him.

After one year of unemployment, and a total of 19 months being unemployed within 3 years of being in the UK, I was severely depressed and at the end of my rope. I'm a smart woman with UK experience working as a top executive assistant for a reknowned company, so when I lost that job, I didn't worry because I thought I had sellable skills.

I went to various job interviews where I was turned down because of " not enough experience" when my experience was there for all to see on the CV that got me the job interview.

I was sometimes crazed with hunger and had bouts of bulimia . I won't go further because I'm sure a lot of you surviving on the JSA know what I'm talking about.

I'm 47 and from France and have never had such a horrible time finding a job.

I can't be on minimum wage because it's not a living wage in London, I have been on Housing Benefits for a year now. I can't afford for one si ngle payment to not fall through, it happened to me last year and because I owe money to my landlord and it's 1000 pounds, I had an eviction notice under my door the next day

I had told my landlord and the superintendent my hb had been cut off ( it was because of filing up my tax return including my middle name and it appeared to hb that it was a name change, therefore a change of circumstances!).

It took me 3 weeks to sort it out and the support of the superintendent who has always saved the day for me.There are good people out there, bless them.

Now, on Tuesday I was asked by my hapless NEA business advisor if I wanted to be on a stand with them at a business event o promote my business and if I had business cards and website ready.

From the very beginning, I had told them that my main concern and pitfall was that the JSA was my only income and I couldn't start a business without the loan.

She asked me if I had signed off JSA yet and I said I would meet with JC on that day. I felt pushed and rushed.

My JC advisor, bless his heart, hearing my story, asked me details about my progress in the NEA program.

When he heard that my NEA advisor actually changed numbers on my cashflow chart so it could be processed successfully and my business plan accepted, he was green.

He refused to sign me off and called one of the NEA program manager who said that all I had to do was to talk to my NEA advisor and grab her by the neck to make her understand I didn't have the money to invest in a website or business cards.JC also tried to give me some money on their end but couldn't. They were very nice and helpful.

I sent my NEA advisor an email and told her in bold letters I had no money to put into website and cards, and, as per my JC advisor, I asked her if I was required to repay the loan if my business tanked within 2 months and I found myself without any income to repay.

He is a very knowledgeable man and he asked the right questions. He asked if I was aware if the loan repayment could be suspended for a few months if my income fell under a certain amount of money. The business advisor didn't answer that point.

All that she wants is for me to be on NEA. She "lost" my business plan and 3 days before her Christmas break asked me to finish it in one weekend, which I couldn't do and had to wait to finish on that Monday evening, for the bp to be sent out the next day for submission.

I also asked to be signed onto training /info sessions and got no replies from the person in charge of the booking.

One time signed onto 2 sessions but couldn't go to one and had to cancel because I had no money for transportation, I asked to be kept on the second session and received no reply from anyone at NEA.

Now my business advisor is sending me emails for franchise forums, small business events, etc...but that's the extent of the help I'm getting. I had to c.c another person to ask her to send me paperwork I needed to apply for the loan.

She replied that all was on the GLE loan website, and when I did a copy paste of the website content mentioning the NEA signed paperwork I needed, and c.ced her boss, I got the form 1 minute later with no apologies from her for her lack of knowledge. This form is a form supplied by the NEA advisor to complete the loan package.

At this point, I am thinking about getting the loan to cover my overdraft and pay off the NEA loan interests with the money I will save from not paying overdraft charges. I intend on finding work, even part time, asap, as soon as I'm on NEA and won't invest more than 500 pounds out of the 1500 I asked at the very beginning, to cushion my overdraft a bit.

We were told during induction that we would not lose Housing Benefits, but from reading the above stories, I am dead scared to find myself like terrifyed, without food, and threatened of eviction.

Can someone who has been on the NEA for the whole 6 months confirm that they still received HB for the remainder of the 6 months if their income was still too low?

Also, if you work during the NEA program, do you keep your HB if you work under 16 hours?

I had to turn down work before Christmas because it was over 16 hours and for 2 days only, and I was afraid this would impact my HB. Also my JC advisor told me that if I worked that job I would lose my place in the NEA program.

The idea behind getting into NEA was to have 3 months of NEA income to be able to cumulate with a part time job or minimum wage job, to survive and hopefully find a job at a decent wage to cumulate with the NEA payments so I could pay off my debt, and start the business on the weekends and evenings.

Apparently, from what you guys are saying, the JC still requires to attend sessions with them and needs proof of trading. I thought the JC would be off our backs after signing onto NEA.

Sorry for the long post but if someone could chime in, it would be so great.

Neanovicetobe

Adviser not advisor isn't it? Not sure about reknowned either sp?

Andy2013

It sounds like your quite worried about money coming in , the best thing to do is to talk directly to your HB people and tell them everything truthfully and direct so you get an honest answer because benefits are a mine field and everyone varies so answers on here will probably only confuse the situation.

I am a little worried that you are getting the NEA loan to pay existing debts, this is a nightmare in the making and should never be done, the NEA money should be used for your business and ultimately if you can avoid the loan altogether then even better as this will hang over your head long after you forget why you even had the loan.

Having part time jobs whilst on NEA ,HB CTB and everything else is very complex and only those agencies can really help give a solid financial answer.