Notice etc

stevescarratt

Hi my wife’s firm has been made insolvent so she will now be claiming redundancy as she worked there 15 years I believe that she will receive 12 weeks pay in lieu of notice. As she has this notice I presume she cannot sign on? Also, however unlikely as she is 64 if she gets another job would this notice have to be repaid?

tacpot12

The pay in lieu of notice will not have to be repaid. It is a payment that make to end someone's employmentt earlier than it would otherwise end, so that their employment ends at the earlier point and any restriction on finding a new job also ends at that point. This link confirms this: Payment in Lieu of Notice Rules | DavidsonMorris (See the section on "How does PILON differ from garden leave").

She can sign on as soon as she she no longer works for the company. She will claim New Style-JSA (ns-JSA) if she has paid enough NI contributions over the last three years, which she will probably have done if she was working more than a few hours a week, or Universal Credit if she has not paid enough NI. The easiest way to check how much NI she has paid, either by logging into her Personal Tax Account (if she has a Government Gateway User ID), or it may just be easier to try to claim JSA. They will knock her back straight away if she hasn't paid enough NI. 

The advantage to claiming ns-JSA (even though they will only pay it for six months) is that they don't take her savings and your income into account. Universal Credit (UC) does, and if the redundancy payment takes your joint savings over £6,000 you will start to lose some of the UC money, and it will stop all together if you have over £16,000 in savings.

If you rent your home, you might consider claiming Unviersal Credit in order to get help with you rent. Check your entitlement using the benefit calculator at EntitledTo.co.uk.

How the DWP treat the Redundancy Payment and the Pay in lieu of notice varies between UC and ns-JSA:

• Redundancy Pay is capital for UC and ns-JSA, but because ns-JSA doesn't restrict the amount of capital you have, it doesn't affect ns-JSA payments in that way that it would affect UC payments. 
• Pay in lieu of notice is income for UC, but not for ns-JSA. So it would not affect your ns-JSA, but would affect the amount of UC you receive.

stevescarratt

Thanks for the reply so if she gets 12 weeks pay will jsa be paid or not as she is receiving this money in lieu of notice? Ie as she is receiving this notice payment they will say she’s not entitled to any money until the notice period is up ? In which case should she not sign on for 12 weeks? As for uc if we take joint savings into account I believe she will receive nothing. Ps I am a disabled pensioner on state pension thanks again