universal credit and zero hours contracts

silversnail

I am wondering if anyone can advise me. I have been teaching for thirty years, and was made redundant in August. I have signed up with two supply agencies, and on a good week I get enough work not to have to worry about money, though I am not working every day by any means.
However, with the snow before Christmas, and then the Christmas holidays, and now the start of term, I am a bit concerned about my lack of work. My partner is self employed, and I was the main breadwinner up to now. We have two young children too.
I haven't claimed any benefit as, foolishly, I thought I wouldn't be out of work for very long. I have been for several interviews, but seem to be too expensive; the cheaper, younger candidate is being appointed. I suppose the reality is hitting me now!
Anyway, I think I need to start claiming benefits, but I am not sure how to go about it when my income changes from week to week. We do get Child Tax Credit so will I think I won't get Universal Credit. I did get some redundancy money, but as I was working part time it isn't loads; will that count against me? I do have a bit of savings, but not anything significant. Can anyone advise me how I put my income down? The last month I earned only about two hundred pounds. I worked one day last week, and will only do a couple this week. On other weeks, if I work four days for example, I may earn four hundred and fifty pounds. I am dipping into my savings to cover the shortfall on mortgage payments etc.
Many thanks in advance.
ps I can't edit the title of this thread, but I shouldn't have written 'universal credit' - sorry!

john1002

I am not sure why you don’t want universal credit in the title as that is what you say you are looking to claim, easy thing would be to go to the entitled website and enter your details and circumstances and see what comes out, universal credit is designed to take into account your working hours and fluctuations so you should receive something depending on your savings amounts etc.

Good luck

John

marliepanda

UC is worked out monthly, but also involves a qualifying period of I think roughly 3 months where there is a cap.

I’m not an expertly UC by any means, but it may be tricky with supply work as you are paid extra on your day rate to cover the holidays, it’s almost seen as a lifestyle choice (thisnis from my experience claiming JSA whilst supply teaching, I haven’t done it with UC) and they ended up averaging it over a much longer period as they were pretty much saying that was my choice. So as I’d hit around £16k on supply, even though I was no longer doing it they wouldn’t give me any JSA despite being on a nil income.

Considering you could be a CEO and earn 100k in two months, then leave and claim JSA it kinda annoyed me at the time, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Speak to your agency and see if they do any guaranteed work schemes. I was on one which guaranteed me 4/5 days a week. (Was 5 for the most part but some terms they’d shift to 4) you had to go anywhere they sent you and often I’d end up going in as a TA (on a teaching wage still) but it gave me some stability.

sheramber

If you are in a Universal Credit area your tax credits will stop as it will be included in the Universal Credit payment.

Put your details onto the calculator to see what you might get
https://www.entitledto.co.uk/

Your income is notified to DWP by HMRC and your payments will be adjusted as necessary.