Income Based JSA vs UC

Darenth87

My 6 months Contribution based JSA ended tail end of last month after the fixed 182 days.

I was notified by letter - the advisor at the job centre never warned me the 182 days was drawing to a close a few weeks ago.
I might have been ahead of the curve and we could have planned getting my money some other way ASAP. Now I fear a 5 week wait (min).

I called the DWP and they said the records show I will be switched over to income based JSA subject to an entitlement review and to speak to my advisor (or at least thats how I remember the call - I should have recorded it to playback - damn).

i signed last week but when I asked about IB JSA and the entitlement review my advisors eyes glazed over and he said he doesnt get involved in those areas and that if I dont receive anything by this thursday (the 15th nov) I should go online and apply for universal credit. I asked if UC was being delayed in my area and he said no its going through as normal but an online check revealed it does not start in my area until tomorrow Wednesday 14th Nov. (in other words 1 day before my advisor told me to apply for UC). Was this to trap me off JSA and into UC?

Today is my usual payment day and no credits have been received so clearly I am now in financial limbo.

How best to approach this? Should I go to the jobcentre today ( I have tried to find a telephone number but it seems to be the national number) and get this entitlement review done and get logged for income based JSA before the cut off date of 14th Nov? Apart from the 5 week wait is there another reason why the advisor seems to want to engineer the situation by shoving me onto UC and keeping me away from IB JSA which is what I suspect given that he told me to apply for UC 1 day after the last day of JSA which would mean I had no choice.

Do I have the same as or better choices on UC and am I worrying over nothing? I think I need to move quickly on this today.

Ineededaname

I'm not sure if there is any way you can claim Jobseekers at this point. You'd need to take this up with the DWP. My concern reading your post is that if your Jobseekers ended at the end of last month and you haven't claimed for anything you will be missing ~two weeks worth of money??

The first thing you need to do is establish the status of your JSA. Is it still active...have you been switched to income based or has it been closed down?

If JSA is closed I'd just go ahead and make your UC claim. It's exceptionally strict to get UC backdated and I wouldn't advise delaying your claim while you try to figure out if JSA is a possibility. I'd imagine you will be in for a ride and the end result may simply be a no and you have to claim UC, and then it most likely would not be backdated. End result is you've lost money.

The amounts paid on JSA and UC are the same, except UC is monthly. You do have a five week wait until your first payment but you are able to request an advance at your first appointment, which could be a full months money if you wished which you can repay over 12 months. There is little difference between the new JSA regulations and UC in terms of what you can be asked to do.
There are actually some advantages to UC such as being able to manage the claim online and it is much better suited to any part time or temporary working.

The above advice is assuming you are single and only based on a jobseeking claim. If you are claiming other benefits such as housing or child tax credits, these would be affected by a UC claim.