National Insurance (NI) Credits and the Job Centre

singhini

Situation is the person was made redundant and claimed JSA (which they received for 6 month). Thereafter they filled in a form called JSANC1 and were awarded NI Credits (the job centre calls them once a month to see how their getting on with finding work). They have been claiming NI Credits for about 8 months.

They have successfully managed to get a job which starts this coming Monday (1st August). They will be working part-time and earning £600. They contacted the job centre to let them know and were told that they will still need to come into the job centre fortnightly and complete an online form with their work coach (form EB7).

This doesn't sound right to me as they will be earning £600 per month which is above the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL £533 per month) but below the Primary Threshold of £1,048 and therefore will be automatically awarded class 1 NI Credits (which i assume HMRC will award to them), therefore why the need to still attend the job Centre? 
Furthermore if they were to earn more than the Primary Threshold each month then the employer would take NI tax from their salary via PAYE.

I am right that in this scenario there should be no need to attend or deal with the Job centre or are the job centre right to ask the person to come in every fortnight ?

calcotti

I agree with you. If they are employed earning above the LEL I think they are excluded from receiving NI credits as a jobseeker anyway because they no longer meet the entitlement rules for JSA (Income over the income allowance). 

I'm not knowledge about JSA - is there a starting work form they can give JSA which would effectively end their JSA eligibility? 

The confusion may be that although I think the income excludes them from being treated as eligible for JSA they will be working less than 16 hours/week (going by the wages) which may mean they are in a sort of grey area as far as JobCentre see it.

Will the person be paid weekly or monthly and will the hours be regular - just wondered if they are confident they will be above LEL every week or might have weeks they fall below in which case they might still want NI credits through JobCentre to compensate for those missing weeks.

singhini

Thanks for your response and you raise some good points. To my knowledge it is fixed monthly pay of £600 which is £12.50 per hour for 48 hours a month (half day Tuesday of 4 hours and whole day Thursday of 8 hours, working the first 4 Tuesdays and Thursdays of the month.). No overtime expected. 

I'm now in agreement with you about it being a grey area and the 16 hours per week rule. i'm going to advise they go to the job centre and once they have been in post atleast a month and have their first pay slip raise it with the job centre and then directly with HMRC.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Did they actually tell the Jobcentre they would be signing off?

calcotti

I agree with Dazed.. If he is clear that he's going to get Class 1 credits through work the simplest thing is just to ask DWP to close the 'claim' - but wait until the work has started.

singhini

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Did they actually tell the Jobcentre they would be signing off?

To be honest im not sure and i'm second guessing but i suspect not.