Ib & cb jsa

bluphoto7

Was recently made redundant and am now claiming CB JSA as I've been in work for many years until now.

I can find lots of info on CB JSA and also on IB JSA. My adviser told me that I should be on CB JSA and not IB JSA. I asked him if both could be claimed at the same time and he said no.

Just received my reward letter saying that I am now getting CB JSA at £73.10/wk, but they say they can't give me any more because we have more than £16,000 of savings.

So is the reason I don't get more than £73.10/wk because I had a large bank balance at the time of the application, or because "no matter what" it's not possible to get both IB & CB JSA at the same time.

ie, if I'm entitled to £73.10 of CB JSA, and "£ X" of IB JSA, is it possible to get £73.10 + X of "overall" JSA?

I can't find anything on the government websites that says that it's one or the other, and only have the "rather unclear" word of my JSA adviser.

Thanks
G

bluphoto7

I should say that we don't have more than 16k of savings, but at the time I put the application in, it didn't ask what my savings were, but asked for my bank balance.
I have since bought a car to be able to get around to job interviews etc, paid off credit cards, for purpose of reducing interest payments, so now that I've been signed on for two weeks, am sitting at about £5000 of "proper" savings.

I understand that this is not relevant if its not possible to get both benefits at the same time anyway.

Torry_Quine

You get contributions based for six months if you have paid sufficient contributions. After that you will get income based which takes into account all household income and savings. You can't get both together.

bluphoto7

ok thanks. Just wanted to be certain.

TELLIT01

Paying off credit cards may affect the amount you get once you put a claim in for Income Related JSA. As there is no legal requirement to pay them down it may, and I stress may, be considered to be deprivation of capital. This is more likely to be a consideration because you clearly knew that you couldn't get IR JSA because your savings were over the limit.

tazwhoever

Torry_Quine wrote: »

You get contributions based for six months if you have paid sufficient contributions. After that you will get income based which takes into account all household income and savings. You can't get both together.

What does 'household income /savings' mean according to DWP?

Only claimant (and partner).

TELLIT01

Claimant and partner is correct for 'household income'.

pmlindyloo

Torry_Quine wrote: »

You get contributions based for six months if you have paid sufficient contributions. After that you will get income based which takes into account all household income and savings. You can't get both together.

This is not true.

You can get contribution based JSA and if you meet the income related criteria then you can get , what is commonly called, an income related 'top up'. The DWP usually calls this an income based claim. The contribution based part is still there and cannot be lost because of savings/household income.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-income/jobseekers-allowance-jsa/before-you-claim-jsa/check-if-you-can-get-jsa/

So basically it depends on their personal circumstances.

If the OP has a partner who is not working or only working a few hours each week then it might be worth claiming income based JSA.

However, I agree that the spending of savings might be an issue - car (unless very expensive) would probably be OK but paying of debts might be a problem. The timing of using savings immediately before claiming is the most problematical part. Deprivation of capital is about spending savings/cpaital when you do so to claim/increase benefits.