Contribution based JSA - advice needed please

cwtches

My husband was made redundant last december and claimed contribution based JSA for 6 months then claimed incom based, we get no payment as we have savings. In August we went away for two weeks so he informed DWP and was told it would be a rapid re claim when he wanted to sign on again. He contacted them on return and went through the process of reclaiming - today we have had a letter saying they will be paying contribution based JSA until Feb 2015.
We are confused by this - can anyone shed some light on it for us????

pmlindyloo

There is very little advice about contribution based ESA from government sources but this is my understanding.

When your OH claimed contribution based JSA in December 2013 they used his NI contributions from the tax years April 2011 - April 2012 and April 2012 - April 2013. This then ran for 6 months.

When he claimed again in August 2014 it was a new benefits year (a benefits year runs form January to December) and so they used the tax years April 2012 -April 2013 and April 2013 - April 2014.

Because he claimed in a new benefits year and they are using different tax years and there was a break of at least 12 weeks (when he was claiming income based JSA? and was on holiday) then he is entitled to another 6 months of contribution based JSA.

Are you still with me?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is backed up by this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobseeker's_Allowance

However, without the exact dates of when he first claimed contribution based/when it ended and when he made the second claim I can't work out if 12 weeks have passed.

As I said I cannot find any other 'official' information to support this so I would advise you to ring and check and ask for an explanation.

Please come back and tell us what the 'rules' are!

sportsarb

Advice above seems solid enough.

If the claims were only a few weeks apart then usually they would link, but, they linking can be disregarded if the claimant satisfies in the new tax years and had exhausted contributions previously.

If you have all the letters from the previous claim check what years were on it compared to this year.

cwtches

Thanks for the info - it makes a bit more sense than before! There hasn't been a 12 week gap between the contribution based ending and the re claim, more like 8.