ESA advice please

Sherrie

Good morning

I was hoping that someone could offer me some advice. My partner has been in full time work for several years, at the beginning of November he changed jobs, he was in the new job for one week before becoming ill and being in hospital. His new employer will not pay SSP as he has not worked for them for long enough. He has put in a claim for contribution based ESA (cannot get income based as I work full time). Today we received a letter saying that he has not paid enough NI contributions for one of the two past years.

I have checked his NI contributions online and it says that year ending 2015 he only paid 50 weeks NI contributions.

My question is,I have read the rules for contribution based ESA and I don’t fully understand the second rule

“Second contribution condition - in both of the last two complete tax years, you must have paid or been credited with, Class 1 or 2 contributions to the value of 50 times the lower earnings limit.”

Does the 50 times the lower limit mean has to have paid NI for 50 weeks or does it mean something else?

If anyone can shed some light on this it would be much appreciated just so I know what I’m talking about when we have to call them

Many thanks

pmlindyloo

Your husband should be entitled to Statutory Sick Pay.

See here:

https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay/eligibility

His employer needs to give him a form ssp1 stating why he is not entitled.

perhaps they are saying that he is not entitled to contractual sick pay rather than statutory sick. He needs to talk to his employer and if they still refuse to pay SSP then he needs to ask them to complete a SSP1 form.

Sherrie

Thank you for your reply. His employer has given him form SSP1 stating they can’t pay him as he hasn’t earned enough. The job centre and ESA both agreed he needs to work for 8 weeks before claiming SSP. There is no contractual sick pay where he works.

pmlindyloo

OK, so not to do with how long he has worked but to do with the fact that he didn't earn enough.

These are the criteria:

You qualify for contributory Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) if you have paid sufficient National Insurance contributions. There are two contribution conditions you must meet:
First contribution condition - in one of the last two complete tax years, you must have paid Class 1 or 2 contributions on relevant earnings at the lower earnings limit for at least!26 weeks. This means you must have worked for at least 26 weeks of the last two complete tax years; and
Second contribution condition - in both of the last two complete tax years, you must have paid or been credited with, Class 1 or 2 contributions to the value of 50 times the lower earnings limit.
The 2 tax years that are relevant are the ones that were completed before the benefit year in which your period of limited capability for work began.
The tax year runs 6 April - 5th April
The benefit year runs from the first Sunday in January.
The lower earnings limit for the 2014/2015 tax year was £111 per week, for 2015/2016 it was £112 per week.

Are you using the correct tax years? 2014/2015 and 2015/2016?

Can you look at his P60s for these tax years and tell us what he earned and what his NI contributions were for those years?

Sherrie

The employer is saying they cannot pay sick pay because he has not worked with them for 8 weeks, he did one week of 37 hours.

What I am trying to work out is whether his national insurance contributions have to be 50 times £111 so between him and the employer his national insurance contributions would have had to equate over £5000. That is how I am reading/understanding the criteria

I need to dig out the p60’s as everything has been packed away as we were in the middle of redecoration

TELLIT01

I may be wrong but I thought calculation of SSP entitlement was based on earnings over the past 8 weeks, not necessarily earnings with the current employer.

Alice_Holt

Sherrie wrote: »

What I am trying to work out is whether his national insurance contributions have to be 50 times £111 so between him and the employer his national insurance contributions would have had to equate over £5000. That is how I am reading/understanding the criteria

No, the £111 relates to earnings not NI contributions.

If you husband has been working full time in the tax years 2014/15 and 2015/6 and earned above c.£5800 in both tax years he should be entitled to CB based ESA.

Look at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5731000 - epitome gave some useful advice on how to get the DWP to change an incorrect decision on NI contributions.
It's not a rare occurrence, sadly.

Re SSP - eligibility criteria here - https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/sick-pay/check-if-youre-entitled-to-sick-pay/

Sherrie

Thanks for everyone’s help, I think I’ve got it sorted. Looks like he didn’t earn enough 2014/2015 but has done in years 2015/2016 and 2016/2017. So I’m hoping this means that come January he will be eligible as this is when they’ll use years 2015/2016 to 2016/2017

epitome

I have no comment on SSP..... but if the employer is wrong, he would need to make a new claim when SSP expires and that would be in 2018 anyway so the advice below would be partially irrellevant

You need to check P60 for tax years ending

April 2015 & April 2016

In one of those years he will need 26 individual weeks where he earned more than LEL for that year (see post above, £111 & £112)

In both of those years he will need a total earned (excluding earnings above UEL) 50 x LEL, individual weeks do not need to be above LEL it is cumulative total.

14/15 = 50 x 111 = £5550
15/16 = 50 x 112 = £5600

If he did not earn enough in 14/15 then phone them in 1st week of January 2018, and ask for the Modification rule to be applied to his ESA Conts claim.... This should get him paid from January for 1 year ... If still on the benefit after 1 year and the conts ESA payment stop.... wait 12 weeks than ask for new RITY 17/18 to be taken into account... might get another 1 year...

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