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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Income support, JSA and tax credits  →  Thread

Impact of breaks in JSA on HB/CTR?

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Been a long, tiring week so I’ve had a complete mental blank on this.

Clt. has moved from ESA to JSA and is keen to get back to work but in a very managed way as their medical conditions are exacerbated with stress. Has been offered part-time work by a charity and this will never exceed 16 hours pw. However, within that, the earnings will fluctuate sufficiently to remove title to JSA periodically. There is no pattern or cycle to the hours over which they will be able to average.

Clt. has been advised by someone else that the JSA claim can effectively be kept open by signing for credits. This will mean HB/CTR never get advised of a break and so all looks well.

However, my reading is that regardless of the lack of a break they would still need to notify HB/CTR that earnings have risen slightly at the point JSA ceases and that this would be each and every time it happened. This would avoid any small overpayments but, in practical terms, would result in HB/CTR being suspended for potentially quite a long period until someone can action the change of circs. Landlord is likely to be less than sympathetic and will move to action every time too even though the arrears will ultimately be fake.

There’s a potential EA 10 angle to this which I would of course be happy to pursue and theoretically that could solve the HB/CTR and landlord issue, but, that aside…

Not got access to a CPAG at present to get a quick answer.

What am I missing? Does there need to be a declaration each time earnings take them over?

 

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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This client is a poster boy/girl for Universal Credit.  I think the best thing s/he could do would be to have earnings above the JSA limit for one month so that s/he doesn’t fail the legacy benefit conditions in the gateway: as soon as his/her hours drop back down, s/he will naturally migrate to UC which will from that point forward take these frequent fluctuations in its stride.

Failing that there is no easy answer to this, it most probably will disrupt HB and CTR.  If someone’s earnings increase enough to knock out JSA it is difficult to see how that would not lead to HB being suspended initially (if notified immediately) or possibly overpaid (if not notified immediately).

I am not sure whether signing on for credits would suppress the ATLAS notification to the Council - I’ll see if I can find out.  As I understand it the earnings would have to fall in the narrow band between the JSA limit and the NI lower earnings limit.  Does the hourly rate of the client’s wages guarantee that this will always be the case?  Or is it arithmetically possible for him/her to earn more than £112 a week in less than 16 hours?  If that happened it would definitely trigger an ATLAS notice and suspension of HB.

Cases like this are a nightmare for HB assessors.  I remember dealing with a claim by a supply teacher in homeless temp acc a few years ago.  She claimed JSA in weeks when she had no work.  When she had work her earnings could be quite high, but of course the charges are very high in temp acc as well.  Her HB entitlement could fluctuate from zero to several hundred pounds a week and she just had to get used to everything being sorted out retrospectively every few weeks.

As the client’s earnings are going to be relatively small at all times, the best outcome for him/her would be to persuade the Council to use an average that includes periods while s/he is on JSA.  This will be to his/her advantage because s/he will be passported to max HB when on JSA and the average will be less than the current week’s earnings when s/he’s not.  No guarantee the Council will agree to that: just as likely (probably more likely) that they will separate out periods on JSA and look at average earnings the rest of the time, or even deal with each week in isolation. Either way it is not something they are going to be able to set up in advance so as to guarantee zero HB disruption: there are always going to be short suspensions or constant small overpayments to claw back.

 

[ Edited: 23 Sep 2016 at 09:48 am by HB Anorak ]
Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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HB Anorak. Thank you very much for a comprehensive reply. Appreciated. You’ve confirmed my fears but I had missed the UC angle.

Nature of the work is that it’s so unpredictable I doubt there would be opportunity to maintain their earnings for 4 consecutive weeks above JSA level so as to migrate to UC. It may happen at some point but more by accident than design.

There’s no indication they’ll accept an average over a period (and there really isn’t going to be anything resembling a cycle) but obviously I will be trying that. As with one other case in the recent past, I had attempted to identify one member of staff who could be a contact point for declarations and process them immediately. Was going to try it from an EA 10 ‘reasonable adjustment’ angle but unfortunately not on this occasion. The staff just aren’t there to do it. 

The more immediate concern though is that faced with all of these issues he may simply choose to not accept the employment.