UC and CJSA

Claimant becomes unemployed

Claimant has sufficient NI to get CJSA

Is in a UC area so is told to claim UC and, for argument’s sake, does not know about CJSA

How does the UC claim process identify that s/he is also a CJSA claimant?

[this is not a trick question - I just don’t know]

That’s an interesting question. Hopefully someone knows. My thoughts are as below.

If I were designing it, the logical thing would be to include a NI record check as it would with any new claim to JSA or ESA. The question I would have is that if you are told that DWP is processing a claim for Universal Credit, are you really liable for problems arising from a JSA claim if, technically, you never claimed JSA, but only UC? An example would be if you do work/get a pension that should be taken off your JSA award and you don’t tell the JSA dept. then you be held liable for a JSA overpayment when you never actually claimed it?

Without a firm answer, I would presume both claims are processed simultaneously, but it’s far from clear, isn’t it? Could DWP say “we’re submitting claims to both JSA and UC and we’ll pay JSA if you have an adequate NI record, otherwise you get UC.

Perhaps someone who has submitted claims to UC can advise on how the claim process is structured?