New Enterprise Allowance scheme - My story

How long do you need to be signing on for to apply for new enterprise allowance?

NEA insider, the NEA loan is not provided by Start-up Loan comany. However, you can get a loan via Start-up Loan company known as a top-up loan. Key thing with Start-up Loan company is that you have to prove though sales that the business is viable. The NEA loan is for new businesses and is provided if NEA sign of your business plan as viable. I,ve been through both processes when the original higher 2.5k loan was first set up two years ago. Ask your NEA adviser or JCP adviser for the details of the NEA loan provider. They have very different terms and conditions.

Garethgrew, as fare as I am aware. You can now start the process of getting on NEA as soon as you have signed on as unemployed. If you wait. You will be placed on The Work Programme. Once on The Work Programme. You cannot go on NEA until you have completed that two year course. You cannot have help from two different agencies. So, get it sorted if you have a viable business idea. Anything beats The Work Programme!

JazzBin, looks like you have done everything the wrong way around. You should not have signed off JSA until the loan was agreed with the NEA loan provider. The loan process should take no longer than 3 weeks to complete once your business plan is signed off by your NEA provider. Once your business plan has been signed off. You fax over the loan details to the NEA provider along with a copy of your business plan. After a sort chat on the phone with the loan providers to double check any issues with your business plan. They should send you a loan agreement form to sign. This is the hard copy of your loan agreement which has to be sent by post. Should only take a couple of days for your loan to be made ready. Simple phone call to the loan provider to confirm that the loan is in place. Then, and only then should you sign off JSA and sign the NEA forms. JCP should then fax the loan company to confirm that you are now on NEA. Your loan should then be paid into your bank account within a couple of days! NEA payments should start within 10 days. Your likely to also get paid a final payment of JSA. Housing benefit and working Tax credits claim should be sorted ASAP. Your business plan and NEA paperwork is your proof of working full-time. Remember, your reasearch and setting up your business is work. Everything you do including making phone calls and attending JCP to sort out any problems with payments is classed as work. Take control. Be respectful but dont take no for an answer! Your now in business. Your a professional in your business. So, expect the likes of JCP staff to do the same. If staff are being difficult. Request to see a manager and get the manager to sort out any problems. Its the same with every aspect of being on NEA and running your business. Take control. Make the phone calls. Ask the questions and follow up on everything that is promissed.

In your case, JazzBin. Planning and doing things in the right order is everything! I think you need to get on the phone ASAP to the NEA loan provider and complain and tell them to get their finger out. Without your loan. How can you start trading? If your not trading. How can you claim Working Tax credits or get the NEA payments? One thing to deal with problems when they happen. Much better to deal with the problems before they happen!

What a very useful and informative thread. Huge thanks to everyone for their input.

I'll try not to waffle and be boring but I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place with the NEA. I am 59 and have worked since I got my first Saturday job at Woolworths when I was 14! Last month I became unemployed for the first time in my life and it doesn't feel good. I hate the Jobcentre, absolutely hate it. I won't say any more about them because they are not what this is about.

I have applied for the NEA. Tomorrow I take my business plan along for their inspection. It is as good as it can be; it includes information from the ONS, the IPPC, Age UK, the Nuffield Trust and even a draft analysis from the county council. All of the research is for the mentor's benefit, to show her that there is a need for services such as mine. I already know, from my 15 years working in the sector that the need is there, but obviously I need to be able to prove it to the mentor. It has taken me several weeks of research to gather it all up for presentation.

Anyway, my savings are rapidly running out and £73.10 JSA is not enough to live on. I get no other help, not even with Council Tax. My problem is that I am now thinking that I should have registered as self employed as soon as I lost my job, because by now I would have been earning money instead of running down my savings. I would dearly love to have the NEA but reading this thread leads me to believe that it could be many more weeks before I know whether or not I can have it, and by then my savings might have completely gone.

I feel that it would have been better just to have plunged straight into self employment.......I have already got everything in place to start advertising my services (very low overheads and run from home) and with every week that passes my savings are dwindling. I already have one client lined up without even having started to advertise. This will bring in £50 per week.

Should I just say stuff the NEA and launch myself alone or should I present my BP tomorrow and ask how long it is likely to be before I know if I'm successful or not? I just don't know what to do.....I feel so frustrated, as if doing things properly and going through all the processes/systems is just holding me up rather than helping me. Yes, if I get the £65 a week it will be great, but I'm losing more than that per week by having to subsidise myself from my dwindling savings.

I want to just go ahead with my advertising and start earning my living again. Would I be stupid to do this? I know I am seeing the mentor tomorrow and there's not a huge amount I could do between now and then, but it's all just so frustrating hanging about.

If anyone is reading this, what do you think? What would you do?

Thanks in advance,
Val

SailorSam wrote: »

Decisions ....... Decisions ........... Decisions.
Good Luck.

Thank you, SailorSam. I wish I had a crystal ball!

Like you, I've always been cautious, but I don't know if that has been a good thing or not. There's just something nagging at me...a little voice telling me to just go ahead and launch and that I should have done it as soon as I became unemployed. I am actually regretting not having done that.

But there's another little voice (caution, I suppose) telling me to wait a bit longer, be careful, don't be too hasty.

Conflicting voices! One on each shoulder!

I can't do anything tonight though, that's for sure. Maybe when I see the mentor tomorrow she can give me some indication about the probable outcome.

I appreciate your thoughts, SailorSam, thanks again.

Val

How much do you get per week please on new enterprise allowance?

Can you still get that £1000 grant to start up? Or is it a loan?