ESA/permitted work help

hb7mao

I claim ESA (income related) and am in the Work related activity group (have been for 1 1/2 years)- I attend all my appts and training/courses etc. My advisor has been suggesting doing permitted work, so I have found a job and start in 10 days. My contract is for 4 hours a week, at £7 and hour. so way under the permitted work rules (under 16 hours and up to £101/£104 (?).

Today I have received a phone call saying I will have to attend training, for 3 days next week, in total this equals 28 hours. I thought this was unpaid so agreed to the training. well it turns out this is actually paid, at £7 an hour.

so where do I stand with ESA? I understand I would be working over the permitted 16 hours, but this is for training and only the 1st week? the other weeks I would only be working 4 hours.

I dont want to loose my ESA claim as after the 1st week I will only be earning £28 per week!! and obviously I do not want to loose this job. I am so worried, can anyone help?

pmlindyloo

hb7mao wrote: »

I claim ESA (income related) and am in the Work related activity group (have been for 1 1/2 years)- I attend all my appts and training/courses etc. My advisor has been suggesting doing permitted work, so I have found a job and start in 10 days. My contract is for 4 hours a week, at £7 and hour. so way under the permitted work rules (under 16 hours and up to £101/£104 (?).

Today I have received a phone call saying I will have to attend training, for 3 days next week, in total this equals 28 hours. I thought this was unpaid so agreed to the training. well it turns out this is actually paid, at £7 an hour.

so where do I stand with ESA? I understand I would be working over the permitted 16 hours, but this is for training and only the 1st week? the other weeks I would only be working 4 hours.

I dont want to loose my ESA claim as after the 1st week I will only be earning £28 per week!! and obviously I do not want to loose this job. I am so worried, can anyone help?

The best advice I can give is to ask your advisor about this. I cannot see that this would be a problem and the worse that could happen is that you lose your ESA for one week or you have to come off it and make a rapid reclaim (you would go back onto ESA on exactly the same rate - ie in the WRAG group - no new assessment)

The only problem is if they stop your ESA and you have to make a rapid reclaim make sure you advise the council straightaway if you are receiving HB and CT support.

The only other thing I can think of is to ask if they would spread out the training over 3 weeks - one day a week - probably not an option if they want to start you working immediately.

So, speak to your advisor first and go from there - good luck!

hb7mao

pmlindyloo wrote: »

The best advice I can give is to ask your advisor about this. I cannot see that this would be a problem and the worse that could happen is that you lose your ESA for one week or you have to come off it and make a rapid reclaim (you would go back onto ESA on exactly the same rate - ie in the WRAG group - no new assessment)

The only problem is if they stop your ESA and you have to make a rapid reclaim make sure you advise the council straightaway if you are receiving HB and CT support.

The only other thing I can think of is to ask if they would spread out the training over 3 weeks - one day a week - probably not an option if they want to start you working immediately.

So, speak to your advisor first and go from there - good luck!

Hi, thanks for your advice.
how would I go about a rapid reclaim? would this be fairly straight forward? I dont mind loosing my ESA for one week, but worried the reclaim would take a few weeks to sort out and therefore be without money for those weeks.
The training is set days as it is a new store opening, so it is group training and there is no flexibility

Thanks again!

hb7mao

oh and I have been trying to ring my adviser all day with no reply. also rang job center for advice and was on hold for 30 mins, then the person I got through to was very rude and uhelpfull

Im just panicking now because obviously its the weekend so will have to wait till monday and I dont have much time to sort this out!

fedupfreddie

http://www.entitledto.co.uk/help/Permitted-Work-Rules

At the bottom it says any payments of over £104 per week will be deducted from your benefits.
I assume you just have to tell them how much you earned that week and it will be deducted automatically at the payment centre.

pmlindyloo

fedupfreddie wrote: »

http://www.entitledto.co.uk/help/Permitted-Work-Rules

At the bottom it says any payments of over £104 per week will be deducted from your benefits.
I assume you just have to tell them how much you earned that week and it will be deducted automatically at the payment centre.

That's only if you are working as a councillor.

hb7mao

if I am paid at the end of july how will they know what hours each week i've worked? as the first week will be 28 hours but then the next 3 weeks will only be 4.. so it averages out way less than the 16 hours per week rule?

pmlindyloo

hb7mao wrote: »

if I am paid at the end of july how will they know what hours each week i've worked? as the first week will be 28 hours but then the next 3 weeks will only be 4.. so it averages out way less than the 16 hours per week rule?

Some pay slips show the weekly hours.

Hopefully when you have explained that this is one off training they will average the hours out over the month.

rogerblack

pmlindyloo wrote: »

Some pay slips show the weekly hours.

Hopefully when you have explained that this is one off training they will average the hours out over the month.

My understanding of the regulations is that averaging is only possible for self-employment. I have not looked at these regulations in some months.
One thing to note.
'week' has particular definitions.
If work pays you 100 pounds for 7 work-days from Monday-Sunday, and your ESA pay-date is on a Thursday, then 4/7 of the money goes into one week, and 3/7 into the other.

hb7mao

Hi guys, just an update.
I managed to speak to a lovely lady who deals with ESA claims, he got the permitted work team to ring me today and they told me they can average it out over the month. I have also checked and my payslip will only state monthly earnings not weekly. Hopefully they do not back track and stop my claim!

HappyMJ

hb7mao wrote: »

Hi guys, just an update.
I managed to speak to a lovely lady who deals with ESA claims, he got the permitted work team to ring me today and they told me they can average it out over the month. I have also checked and my payslip will only state monthly earnings not weekly. Hopefully they do not back track and stop my claim!

If you are paid monthly then you can average your hours and earnings over that period. They won't back track on that.