JSA (C) and Voluntary Redundancy - can you claim?

Hi

This is a simple query that a number of people have asked me, but I have received conflicting advice. If (like a lot of public service workers in the next few months) you take voluntary redundancy and receive a lump sum payment are you entitled to JSA (C)?

Hi,

A question that’s going to crop up more and more I suspect.

Usually you will be sanctioned for a variable period if you left your employment voluntarily unless you can show you had just cause. Flicking through this year’s CPAG handbook (p418) - “you have not left your job voluntarily if - you volunteer or accept your employer’s proposal for redundancy ” “where there is a redundancy situation at your workplace”

It also depends on what your employer’s policy is for offering you alternative employment instead of making you redundant, as you could be sanctioned for refusing employment. Local Authorities for example will guarentee interviews for all suitably qualified people under notice of redundancy if job vacancies exist elswhere in the Authority (although if there are no vacancies you can’t get an interview or refuse a job that doesn’t exist!)

Matthew Finch

The Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996

Voluntary Redundancy
71.—(1) A claimant is to be treated as not having left his employment voluntarily–

(a)where he has been dismissed by his employer by reason of redundancy after volunteering or agreeing to be so dismissed, or

(b)where he has left his employment on a date agreed with his employer without being dismissed, in pursuance of an agreement relating to voluntary redundancy.

(2) In paragraph (1) “redundancy” means one of the facts set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of section 81(2) of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978(1).

Refusal of employment can only come about once the claimant is in receipt of JSA

Jobseekers Act 1995

19 Circumstances in which a jobseeker’s allowance is not payable.

(6)The circumstances referred to in subsections (1) and (3) are that the claimant—
(a)has lost his employment as an employed earner through misconduct;
(b)has voluntarily left such employment without just cause;
(c)has, without good cause, after a situation in any employment has been notified to him by an employment officer as vacant or about to become vacant, refused or failed to apply for it or to accept it when offered to him; or
(d)has, without good cause, neglected to avail himself of a reasonable opportunity of employment.