Anyone receive/have experience of the New Enterprise Allowance?

hjb123

Hi

Just wondered if anyone has any experiences of the New Enterprise Allowance. Have looked at a few threads on here about it and been searching on the internet but just getting lost with it all

I have been on JSA for about 10 months now and am hoping to set up my own business. When you get referred by your advisor how long does it take to get accepted/get seen by a mentor? Also wondered if theres a time when the business has to be up and running - someone told me it needed to be within the 8 weeks? This doesnt seem right does it - so within 8 weeks of seeing a mentor your business open?

Any other experiences/thoughts on the New Enterprise Scheme would be gratefully received!

Thanks

moneysavingkitten

I am not on NEA yet, but I have had my business plan approved and I am due to start very soon. I have some of the info you need (I think), it hope it is helpful.

How long it takes to get seen by a mentor depends on whether they have many mentors in your area. When I started they didn't have any, so I think I waited about 4 - 6 weeks to get a mentor.

I went to the CAB the other day and they gave me a print out from their system about NEA, you might find this paragraph helpful:

From 5th August 2011, a client does not have to actively seek employment if s/he is taking part in the New Enterprise Allowance scheme. Because of this s/he can carry on getting Jobseeker's Allowance during the business mentoring stage of the scheme. However s/he has to actively s/he has to actively seek self-employed work by taking part in the business mentoring stage. S/he will have eight weeks to find self-employed work. Jobcentre Plus can extend this time up to 12 additional weeks in exceptional circumstances.

then a couple of paragraphs down:

If a client decides not to set up her/his business immediately after her/his business mentor has approved her/his business plan, s/he can carry on getting Jobseekers Allowance. However, s/he will have to meet all the usual conditions of entitlement, including the condition that s/he must be actively seeking employment.

So in summary, you can have longer before you open the business, but you need a really good reason for it and will still have to go through the normal job search and signing on process. Also it says on a different print out I have from the Jobcentre, if you decide that you that you don't want to start you business yet, you can decide to stop NEA within the first 28 days. If you wanted to apply for NEA again you could, but you would have to be unemployed a further 6 months, so there would be a bit of a wait.

I have been told that when you start on NEA properly and stop claiming JSA, they will book reviews with you at the Jobcentre to check what you are earning. I forget exactly when the cut off dates were now, but I think it's something like every 6 weeks. If you earnt no money in the first 6 weeks, unless you had a really good reason, I think they would stop your claim for NEA and you would have to re-apply for Jobseekers.

If you have to wait for a mentor, that may not be a bad thing. It gives you a bit more time to work on your business plan and prepare yourself.

I am worrying at the moment about NEA and housing benfit, that if you earn small amount of money it may not cover your rent, but may stop you claiming housing benefit. If you get housing benefit it might well be worth you checking into that as well before you start out on the process.

Keep double and triple checking everything the Jobcentre tell you, they don't seem very well informed about Enterprise Allowance at all.

hjb123

thanks for the reply, thats some interesting information there.

when you first saw the mentor did you already have the business plan done or partly done? Ive got my first meeting with the mentor next week and been told to take what I have.

moneysavingkitten

I had already been on the Business Link self employment courses (worth checking out if you haven't already they were free), so I had a rough idea of how to write a business plan.

I got a template from the Princes Trust and wrote my business plan using that. It covers most of the same things as the NEA template, but it wasn't quite in the format they required, but it was good to do in some respects because they go into some things in more detail than the NEA template does, and they break the numbers down differently in the finance section. I think it helped my understand my numbers a bit better doing that. If you want a copy of the Princes Trust template you can get it here:
http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/need_help/enterprise_programme/help_with_your_business_plan.aspx

So then when I got assigned a mentor he read my plan, gave me the NEA template and told me to fill it in. Then I had to keep revising it and sending it back to my mentor until he was happy with it.

I forgot to say earlier before I got my mentor, I had to have an interview at the civic centre with a guy from a local business support company. I had to tell him about my business idea and he makes the decision to decide whether your business is suitable for being referred to NEA and being assigned a mentor.

If I remember right the things he was most bothered about is that they want to be able to employ other people in the future. I told them that I might be able to in a year or so's time if all goes to plan and he seemed happy enough with that. They may also ask you about any potential customers you might have lined up, if you have any that will probably win them over. I got asked about the basics of how I would go about marketing and what I would need to spend money on.

When you start writing you business plan, you mentor will want to know what your expenditure will be, so s/he can help you write a cashflow forecast etc They may also want the information broken down into person expenditure/survival budget and business expenditure. So it can be useful to have that info with you, how much you spend on rent, bills, food, council tax all of that stuff. How much your product or service costs to produce etc

They will also want to know who exactly/what group of people you are planning to sell your product or service to and how you plan to market what you are selling.

I reckon if you can have a rough idea of those things before you start, they should be pretty happy

Greydog

I have signed up to the New Enterprise Schme (NES), as I have been looking for professional work but failed to find any. I have worked in both the legal and accountancy industry for many years. I have also previously set up and run a successful company. I have now decided to set up a business consultancy called Grey Dog. Having a MBA and coming from a professional backgound preparing the business plan was a piece of cake! So if anyone would like help and advice with their business plan, please don't hesitate to contact me on Twitter @Greydog_Bus_Cons.:)