contribution-based JSA in a UC area

Thanks very much, I’ll give it a try!

Yet another case today - claimant has worked for 15 years, job ends, pushed on to UC, told that JSA does not exist any more even based on NICs.

Owing to problems with administering the UC claim he has had one payment in 11 weeks, and no rent element at all. And UC demanded an updated tenancy agreement, holding everything up even further..

Welcome To The Future.

More…..I put up a FoI request some time ago and got a part-answer - and yet of course the farrago proceeds.

The FoI request now has two annotations from people who have been refused CJSA, told that UC has taken over completely and that if they do not answer questions relevant to UC but irrelevant to JSA, they will get no benefit. One has a partner and was told that s/he must attend an appointment or the claim will be closed.

If at all possible, this may be even worse than we thought.

I have found that FoI request you made. As you say, it only provides a partial answer. But am I right in thinking that, if somebody who should be eligible for C-JSA claims UC, the system will check for their contribution record and put them on ‘new’ C-JSA if they qualify for it? So, they won’t be automatically put on UC if they have paid enough national insurance contributions to qualify for a contributory benefit?

Unfortunately Carol I believe that is exactly what doesn’t happen - they get put on UC and are not routinely advised to claim contJSA and in fact it is not easy to make the claim - see http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/8834

Unless anyone has had any different experiences recently?

My experience is that people are not told about CJSA, JC staff do not know that it exists, some deny that it exists, and there is no clear mechanism of any sort for identifying entitlement or starting claims.

A colleague was told very recently that if you call the UC line and ask specifically for ‘new-style’ ESA (and presumably new-style JSA) a claim will be commenced. This has yet to be tested out. But even if this is correct advice, it means that the onus is placed - to a ludicrous extent - upon the claimant.

I made a formal complaint about one refusal of CJSA in a UC area, and the response was to send out a ‘UCJSA1’. I have yet to see one of these, but apparently they exist.  DWP’s policy people at Sheffield have been notified that there is a problem. I don’t know what’s going to happen about it.

How can something so basic be such a mess?

As a former boss of mine was fond of saying - “This is not rocket science!”