I need help to interpret what the final bullet point on p 757 in CPAG W/Benefits and T/Credits handbook! Does this mean that if you have done any permitted work i.e. just say 10 weeks but then decided to bite the bullet and do more than 16 hrs you cannot be a 'welfare to work' beneficiary? with the protection this brings, and you may not be in the position to qualify for TC's with the dis element and so would also not be entitled to the TC linking rule. In this sentence what do you take the definition of 'work that you can do while still being considered incapable of work' to mean? Can't be anything to do with hours so must be the 'kind' of work or is it the 'actual' job? It seems to penalise those who choose to do a period of permitted work in a job they would ideally like to do more hours in and seemingly does not fit in with the intention of government policy etc etc!!! so whats new there.

It means that the work you are doing after having given up your claim for IB will not be remunerative work for the purposes of being a welfare to work beneficiary if the work you are now doing would have been permitted work were you still in IB. If you increase your hours to more than 16, the work would not be (or have been) permitted so you would qualify as a WTW beneficiary.

In this case I think the regulation is probably fairly clear - reg 13A Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Regulations 1995. Certainly clearer than the explanation I just tried to give.

Thanks for this, I think I get it! The problem is York JC plus are not allowing anyone who has done a period of permitted work, that is any kind of work to become a WWB! unless they change the job and the new job for over 16 hours is a different job to the one they did on permitted work. Maybe other JC's are doing the same?

Really? That really doesn't seem right at all....certainly that isn't happening in Cornwall. It may be interesting to discuss this with your local "New Deal for Disabled People" Provider, because the application of regulations in this way will surely hit their performance, and hence their profits!
I'd be interested to know if York JCP change their minds....and send a box of chocs and flowers to make up for their mistake.

Well, no boxes of chocolates, bottles of wine as yet or apologies for that matter but they have seen the error of their ways and they are changing their procedures! Yes! So just goes to show worth challenging something that you can see is wrong, quote a few Regs etc and hey presto! Advisers at JCP had tried themselves to challenge their own policy team but had not been able to do it successfully without the intervention of an outside organisation! I rest my case.