Claiming Carers allowance and IB jobseekers allowance at the same time

cyclonebri1

As above, can you do as the title says??

Everyone now says no, you cant', that includes job centre plus and CAB. I too have called on the Direct Gov number and talked to a different office and been told NO.

But, a relative has been on IBJA for a few years after being made redundant from a job of 32 years.
He now cares for his mother, lives with her, has no assets, other income or savings.
On my suggestion he applied for and was granted Carers allowance as she is disabled.

He informed the benefits office of this and his jobseekers was cut from the £7Oish to £45. This was about 2 years ago.

Last week he was asked to attend a course at 4 days notice, he informed them that he needed longer to arrange cover for his caring duties.
At this point he was told he should not be on jobseekers as his caring duties prevented him from seeking work, and must sign of immediately.

Now I have no issues with this per say but,

Nowhere can we find it written down to that effect, the advisor I spoke to and his supervisor couldn't either.

The benefits office themselves were fully aware of the carers award and as said reduced his jobseekers due to "other income", paperwork to support that.

And if as I have today you go through the official Benefits Advisor on the direct gov site and put in the carers allowance it comes out with the fact that you can claim just over £103 per week, exactly what he has been getting.

He will now need to claim Income support and is likely to be better of coming off jobseekers, but this being the case will he be likely to be able to back claim for lost benefit????

To quote the their own charter;

"If a mistake has been made you may get a special payment if you have suffered financially".

What really gets me is than someone at the Benefits office actually suggested it could be looked on as fraud, :mad::mad::mad::mad:what TF.

rogerblack

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

As above, can you do as the title says??

Everyone now says no, you cant', that includes job centre plus and CAB. I too have called on the Direct Gov number and talked to a different office and been told NO.

But, a relative has been on IBJA for a few years after being made redundant from a job of 32 years.
He now cares for his mother, lives with her, has no assets, other income or savings.
On my suggestion he applied for and was granted Carers allowance as she is disabled.

He informed the benefits office of this and his jobseekers was cut from the £7Oish to £45. This was about 2 years ago.

Last week he was asked to attend a course at 4 days notice, he informed them that he needed longer to arrange cover for his caring duties.
At this point he was told he should not be on jobseekers as his caring duties prevented him from seeking work, and must sign of immediately.

As I understand it.
You can claim CA alongside JSA, and the total amount you get goes up somewhat to reflect your caring responsibilities.
However, you must be available for fulltime work.
It should also be possible to get your jobseekers agreement modified, as long as you will be seeking work over 16 hours a week.
This would include modifications that you need a few days notice to arrange things.

daimonde

whether its IS or JSA the amount shouldnt change, just the fact they no longer need to meet the job search criteria for JSA.
One of the few ways to still receive ongoing IS is as a Carer.

the IS amounts are the same, so there would be nothing to claim back.

the calculation with both should be;

£71 personal Allowance
£32.60 carers premium

£103.60 total applicable amount (the amount the govt says they need to live on)

The actual income would be;

£58.45 Carers Allowance
£45.15 IS/JSA as a top up to their 'applicable amount'.

£103.60 total income

loonatic

because he claims carers all owance he can apply for income support instead of jobseekers and they will backdate it plus he should have been getting whats called a carers premium with the ibja i would check if thats happened because he will be entitled to all that

daimonde

theres nothing to be gained from a backdated IS because as you say its instead of JSA, its the same amounts, as per my figures above & the info provided by OP, the Carers Premium is already included in the calculation.


I would personally say apply for IS just because there is no requirement to meet JSA conditions, that doesnt mean they cant look for work, just not restricted by the Jobseekers Agreement, there shouldnt be any gap in the benefits & no change in the amounts.

You can claim CA & JSA, you can be sick & claim JSA, BUT you have to be actively available & searching for work. As Roger says a modified agreement might be the answer there.

There is no financial gain from swapping from one to the other though.

cyclonebri1

Thank you all for your help, the issue is now resolved and he has been granted IS, the amount is equal so end of to be honest.

It was their mistake, plus I hadn't realised it would simply hit the same "cap".

The real annoying part of this was the org that were arranging the course, don't have the details, suggested he had committed fraud and they would have to report it to JCplus.:mad::mad:

Everything had been done through JC plus, the mistake, and that's all it was, was theirs, thanks again.:T

rogerblack

volintier wrote: »

Quite right - there is no financial advantage IS or IBJSA or indeed IBESA..

IBJSA means they can work if they choose lots more flexibly than with either IBESA or IS.
Of course, it comes with substantial hurdles, as does ESA, and the ability under that to do 'permitted work'.

cyclonebri1

Yes the one thing that is clear to me is that being on this benefit does not preclude him from looking for work, which in actual fact he is, but it will mean that it will be all change again if he gets the hours he is looking for.;)