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Gateway conditions - entitled to?
I know this has been discussed before but have failed to find thread
CPAG p 20 Gateway conditions
First bullet point - You must not be entitled to JSA either cb or ib
Second bullet point - clarifies you must not be waiting for outcome of claim - that’s clear, so what does the statement “entitled to” mean in the first point
How can you be entitled unless you claim? am I missing the obvious…?
I know this has been discussed before but have failed to find thread
CPAG p 20 Gateway conditions
First bullet point - You must not be entitled to JSA either cb or ib
Second bullet point - clarifies you must not be waiting for outcome of claim - that’s clear, so what does the statement “entitled to” mean in the first point
How can you be entitled unless you claim? am I missing the obvious…?
perhaps it means, if you did claim you would be entitled .......many people are entitled to many benefits but don’t claim them, hence the data about unclaimed benefits. as opposed to those who do claim, but are not in fact entitled to whatever it is…..
:-)
I agree that sometimes “entitled to” means, in the context, eligible in principle or potentially entitled without necessarily having made a claim. Thus, for example, guidance to local authorities on the benefit cap says that a claimant is exempt from the cap because s/he is “entitled to working tax credit” means working sufficient hours to qualify for working tax credit irrespective of whether it is actually being paid. Sometimes DWP even uses the words “entitled to” in circumstances where the precise opposite is true - a claimant whose income exceeds the JSA(ib) applicable amount is said to be “entitled to” a certain amount of JSA(ib), which they quite plainly are not. So you have to judge from the context what DWP means in this particular case.
In the context of the UC gateway conditions, I think “entitled to” must mean in the proper sense of having claimed and been awarded the benefit in question. Section 1 of the Administration Act says that no-one is entitled to any benefit unless they make a claim for it in the prescribed manner in addition to satisfying the other conditions of entitlement. If that were not the sense contemplated by the UC gateway conditions it would deprive subparas (3) and (4) of para 3 of Schedule 5 to the No 9 Commencement Order of any purpose (awaiting outcome of a claim, appeal etc). I think the gateway conditions are concerned with real life entitlement.
BTW, you do pass the gateway if you are entitled to “new style” JSA(c) or ESA(c): it’s only pre-existing old-style awards that fail the gateway.
Thanks Anorak
So are you saying that as anyone coming to us and asking what to claim now will (presumably) only be entitled to “new style” contibutory JSA - they can claim UC? If so why do the gateway conditions list say you cannot claim if you are entitled to JSA or not be waiting for a decision on….without any reference to old or new
Not completely sure what new style means. Is this just the claimant commitment/conditionality side of things? (can’t see anything in CPAG which uses this phrase)
Presumably then if someone ONLY entitled to cb JSA they can still claim HB and if they are entitled to both cbJSA with UC top that housing costs have to be paid with UC
Sorry but really feel I am not getting the plot on this one
I thought I had grasped the basics of UC and a real client turns up!
It is a nightmare Maggie - you are not alone in finding it so! You might want to look at this thread too which talks about the same issues - http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/9810/
Edit - sorry I see you already have!
Yes, Maggie that’s right.
“New style” JSA means contribution-based JSA awarded on a claim by a person who is eligible in principle for UC. Whether or not s/he has already claimed UC is immaterial: if you approach DWP as a new claimant and you satisfy the UC gateway, the only JSA you can claim is “new-style”. It does not prevent you claiming UC.
The practical effect of this is that vanilla single jobseekers becoming newly unemployed or leaving education etc cannot make a new claim for JSA-ib anywhere: that’s the kind of person you are referring to, right?