Jsa Info

[shuggler]

Can you tell me what info do you have to give the job centre if your claiming jsa do you need to give them details of savings etc. Been made redundant and its been a long time since i signed on so not sure what i need to disclose to them any help would be grateful.

[andydd]

Can you tell me what info do you have to give the job centre if your claiming jsa do you need to give them details of savings etc. Been made redundant and its been a long time since i signed on so not sure what i need to disclose to them any help would be grateful.

 

Depends wether you are eligible for Contribution or income based JSA. If youve worked for last few years it will be CB-JSA for 6 months at least and savings wont matter for this, although they will for other benefits, council tax, housing, etc.

 

Andy

[shuggler]

Thanks andydd been workin for the last six years not been on benefits for a while, when i phoned up it was a bit of a shock want to know bank details wife's wages savings etc can they insist on these, not claiming for me wife,just myself also been paid six weeks PILON from the 11th dec so not due any JSA as far as i know, just want to keep my contributions right stamp etc.

[ErikaPNP]

If you are signging on purely to get your stamp paid, they will not be interested in your wife's earnings.

[privatehudson]

It depends on the type of benefit you've applied for. Jobseekers Allowance is split into two main parts. Income based is one and Contribution based is the other. You usually either get the chance to state which JSA you wish to apply for or go through an eligibility check to see which is better.

 

If you applied for the former its a means tested benefit and they will ask about other people in the household. If you have a partner the claim is no longer just about you but both of you, so questions about savings and pensions are relevant for both of you.

 

If you applied for the latter they don't usually ask about for the ins and outs of your savings as its based on contributions, not income or savings. They might ask about them though if you also asked about another means tested benefit (typically Housing or Council Tax benefit) at the same time as claiming JSA Conts.

.

You can also ask specifically to claim just to "pay your stamp" and not receive any money, you will usually be asked if you wish to claim national insurance credits only without claiming JSA, you'd say yes to this. This comes right at the start of the process though and if you've already gone through the whole telephony process you'd pretty much have to start again unless there's some way of changing it at the job centre.

 

As for bank details yes they would need to know these at some point as its the main method of payment. If you're unhappy giving them over the phone or internet you can choose to provide them at a later date such as the interview at the jobcentre.

[Jan4a]

How much NIC do you have to have paid to get contributions based for 6 months? Shouldn't Shuggler get that if he has been working for 6 years?

Even though he might not get income based after the six months because his wife is working?

 

They wanted my bank account statements, savings etc when I first claimed for contributions based. Might have been because I claimed housing/c tax as well though.

Edited December 22, 2009 by Jan4a
added last para

[privatehudson]

How much NIC do you have to have paid to get contributions based for 6 months? Shouldn't Shuggler get that if he has been working for 6 years?

Depending on the type of NIC he paid he'd probably qualify for contribution based yes. Its hard to say without knowing all the facts but it sounds like one of three things have occurred.

 

1) Shuggler's wife works but only part time (under 24 hrs IIRC), and their combined savings are less than £16,000 so he's still eligible for Income Based JSA

2) Shuggler claimed Conts based JSA but at the relevant point in the call asked to claim housing or council tax benefit as well (similar to what you did). This triggers the "means tested" questions that are not normally required.

3) A third, less likely option is that when prompted if he knew what benefit he wished to claim Shuggler asked specifically to claim Income Based JSA.

 

The bottom line is that means tested benefits like Income Based JSA, Housing and Council Tax Benefit translates to the government wanting to know if you need it or not. For JSA they set a figure for how much an individual or couple needs to live on, so naturally want to know if you are above or below that figure at present.

 

However as I understand it any claim to Income Based JSA will also look at whether a claimant has paid enough NIC to qualify for Conts based as well. So even if his wife's earnings and their savings are too much at present I presume they will check his NI contributions and if Shuggler has paid enough give an award for just him.

Edited December 23, 2009 by privatehudson

[Jan4a]

Depending on the type of NIC he paid he'd probably qualify for contribution based yes. Its hard to say without knowing all the facts but it sounds like one of three things have occurred.

 

1) Shuggler's wife works but only part time (under 24 hrs IIRC), and their combined savings are less than £16,000 so he's still eligible for Income Based JSA

2) Shuggler claimed Conts based JSA but at the relevant point in the call asked to claim housing or council tax benefit as well (similar to what you did). This triggers the "means tested" questions that are not normally required.

3) A third, less likely option is that when prompted if he knew what benefit he wished to claim Shuggler asked specifically to claim Income Based JSA.

 

The bottom line is that means tested benefits like Income Based JSA, Housing and Council Tax Benefit translates to the government wanting to know if you need it or not. They set a figure for how much a couple needs to live on, so naturally want to know if you are above or below that figure at present.

 

However as I understand it any claim to Income Based JSA will also look at whether a claimant has paid enough NIC to qualify for Conts based as well, so I presume they will check his NI contributions and if Shuggler has paid enough give an award for just him.

 

Thanks, thought so. It confused me when I first rang them, didn't know whether I wanted contribution or income - just told them everything and they worked it out.

 

Savings were taken into account with h ben/c tax with me though - I had to pay a bit for first 6 months until my savings dropped. And they wanted proof of what I had spent savings on. Just thought I'd mention it, when you aren't used to claiming you don't realise things like that. Luckily I could show where they had gone!

 

Jan

[privatehudson]

Savings were taken into account with h ben/c tax with me though - I had to pay a bit for first 6 months until my savings dropped. And they wanted proof of what I had spent savings on. Just thought I'd mention it, when you aren't used to claiming you don't realise things like that. Luckily I could show where they had gone!

 

Yeah they would have been, the details weren't necessary to process your conts based JSA claim as it has no direct affect on it, but were necessary for the Local Authority to process the HB/CTB claim.