Is not Form ET3 the one sent by the tribunal, when they have accepted youe claim, to your employer or ex employer to fill in? If the rest of the form is already filled in then this this will be a copy to you for your information

Here are some details of pension entitlements fromthe DWP For men born December 1953 onwards the state pensionage is now 66 Forfemales born 1951 – state pension age is now 60 Forfemales born 1952 – state pension age is now 61 Forfemales born 1953 – state pension age is now 62 Forfemales born 1954 - state pension age is now 65 Forfemales born 1955 – state pension age is now 66 State pension age is due to rise again in 2017 to 67 I believe that oneis not now eligible for pension credits or the bus pass until one reaches statepension age. The maximum state pension for a single person is £107.45 a week in the 2012/13 tax year and £110.15 fromApril 2013. Married couples andcivil partners receive a joint pension worth up to £171.85 a week (£176.15 fromApril 2013) even if only one of them qualifies for the full basic statepension. How much you getdepends on how many years of national insurance contributions you have madeover your working lifetime. To qualify for the full amount you need to havemade 30 years' contributions. In 2003 thegovernment introduced a means-tested benefit called pension credits to combatpensioner poverty. This means thatpensioners are guaranteed a minimum weekly income of £142.70 for singlepensioners (rising to £145.40 from April 2013) and £217.90 for couples (risingto £222.05 in April 2013). If total pensionerincome is below the minimum weekly income figures for any reason then it israised to those figures by pension credits, irrespective of national insurance contributions.

I am sorry that the point I was trying to get across was not grasped in some quarters. It may not be such a waste of time. By failing to give any prominence to ESF participation in the work programme in its documentation the DWP is in breach of its own and ESF regulations. In other words it may be acting illegally. The ESF can sanction the DWP, withhold funding and impose fines for failing to comply with the regulations. Considering it contributes £2.5 Billion to DWP schemes, it would be difficult for the DWP to deliver what it is committed to delivering without such funding, even the loss of part of it would be felt. Some may think its a waste of time but the ESF take it seriously. If a letter is required by law to have a logo. and/or the signature of a recognisable person to whom one can respond, and it does not, is it a legal document? If I receive a letter containing changes to an existing contract that I have with the DWP and the letter is not properly recognisable as being from the party with whom I have the contract, should I just accept the changes? (I certainly would not under contract law). If the letter says that it is for information only and I need not take any action, does this mean that I need not acknowledge it? If I had not received the letter, and they are not to know that if I took no further action on it, am I still under the terms agreed to in the original agreement, or am I now under the terms of a letter I did not get? In which case, what's to stop anyone at the DWP saying that I was sent a letter, even if I was not, notifying me of changes to regulations that I am required to adhere to any time it suits them? They could just as easily say they sent a letter arranging an appointment which they had not, and sanction me on the strength of it. Last week the DWP lost its case because of a failure to explain follow procedures concisely and clearly. It nearlybrought the whole show to an ignominious end, nearly but not quite. The next clash might. I am not for a moment suggesting that this will do it but only by chipping away will the crack ultimately appear that will bring the whole edifice crashing down. Someone, somewhere has seen this as a waste of time, someone else might see in it a spark to be developed.

Thanks for that Minibits, all that to look forward to By the sound of it I'll be lucky if I get out of this world alive.

A lovely story, Cleaver, Bless You Sadly all too familiar in our towns and cities. By the way there is no likelyhood that those sheds are going to be any cheaper for the proposed occupants. The bills will be no less.

When the current Work Programme (WP) was rolled out in 2011 it was said to cost £5 Billion, since when it is estimated to have risen to £7 Billion. It was not widely reported however that the European Social Fund (ESF) contributed £2.5 Billion, half of the original sum. One of the stipulations in the regulations of the ESF is that all recipients of ESF funding show the ESF logo and a statement to the effect that - 'This programme is part-financed by the European Union' - on all documents, letters, advisory leaflets etc. The DWP is a recipient of ESF funding, quite a significant recipient. Therefore it should include the logo and the statement recited above on all documents etc especially those related to the WP or other similar schemes. It follows that the WP providers are all also recipients of ESF funding. Failure to comply with any ESF regulation, including this one, is a breach of the regulations and may result in the repayment of funds and/or the levying of fines. The letter I got yesterday notifying me of changes to WP regulations had no ESF logo and no mention of ESF at all. I have other letters from them with like omissions. Other readers may wish to check their mail to see if the same breach is repeated in their case. Googling the ESF website will get the address of the nearest ESF Marketing and Publicity Office to you should you, wish to notify them of this breach. A letter to your local Jobcentre manager would not go amiss either.

PANIC!!!!!! What's all this about "Phases"? I've been on the work programme for a year and a half. I've been shunted from room to room, but I have never been told about being on phases or any entitlement to be on one. I would quite like to be on a phase if only to ease the monotony, I could look on it as a promotion and it would look good on my CV alongside my skills at making paper elephants.

If those sheds were so great the poor would not have a look-in. The well to do and the speculators, who have got their beady eyes on the homes of the dispossessed, would be scooping them up. Not seeing the impending advent of Kristallnacht here? The victims of those days were also led to beleive and encouraged to inform others how much better off they would be and how lucky they were. When they became too ill or old to work for nothing there was a solution for that too, the final solution. Chemical coshing and allowed to vegitate in privately run "care homes" is much more humane. ATOS, are they not an offshoot of Siemens? Siemens, is it not a German company who built their factories in or near the camps? What did they produce, medication, poisons, chemicals and gases, gas chambers and the ovens, among other things? Old habits die hard? Anyway let's make sure that nothing remains to offend the eyes or disturb the sensitivities of the good people of Brighton. You'll want your poor shipped up north I expect? Perhaps they could be shipped off bag and baggage to the former colonies?

Does anyone have an opinion on this "Bed in a Shed" scheme backed by Brighton Council? Apparently they gave the goahead for shipping containers to be used to house the homeless and dispossessed. All they need then is the barbed wire and the watchtowers and there you have it, concentration camps. Seems that in some places landlords are erecting sheds on any spare land they have and charging from £300 to £500 per month to house people. Cameron is presently over in India inviting all and sundry to move to England. He's obviously trying his best to change England so they'll feel right at home.

I received the letter this morning. It says that the letter is for information only. In the new regulations rushed through last week it states in Part 1, paragraph 2(2); “For the purpose of these Regulations where a written notice is given by sending it by post it is taken to have been received on the second working day after posting” The letter I got this morning was dated 13th February 2013, that’s four working days ago excluding Saturday. The postman works Saturday so from his point of view that’sfive working days ago. Whoever is taking it as stated in the Regulations therefore, is taking it wrong. This could have serious repercussions if the contents of a letter required urgent attention. The letter was not signed either, Can an unsigned letter of notification addressed to me personally have any legal weight? Who can I get to claim authorship if nobody accepts authorship?

Where does the Salvation Army go for salvation? What shocks me is how they appear to be less than truthful about their involvement in exploiting jobseekers in its charity shops.

Thanks for that Rebecca, I mentioned in my post that the scheme was the Work Programme. For obvious reasons, not least legal ones, I cannot name names at this stage. Anyway as far as I understand the work programme the same legal requirements covers them all. The questions raised by my points 1 and 2 have been well aired in previous enquiries and the recent court ruling seems to have confirmed my suspicions that the programme providers were not acting legally. The question of whether work programme providers are within their rights to set up a business and then use jobseekers for their own gain is the one I have not seen much written about and I wondered if any else had a similar experience.

Any objective opinions on the following scenariowould be appreciated. 1. Conscriptedonto the work programme without choice or as much as a by your leave. 2. Pressuredinto participating in a work placement. Again, no choice offered, but thethreat of sanction if I failed to participate. 3. Thisis the main point, the legality of which I question: The work placement provider was asub-contractor set up by my work programme provider. Either the placement provider orthe programme provider bid for council contracts to repair, maintain orregenerate council properties/land etc. Jobseekers on the work programmewere then coerced, browbeaten, intimidated and threatened with sanctions, ifthey refused to “volunteer” to carry out the work, fulfil the contract forwhich the placement provider and/or the programme provider bid and were gettingpaid. There was not even pretence atpassing the experience off as preparation for gainful employment. It was puregraft and manual slog. A half decent building contractor would have used a JCBto dig and shift quantities we were expected to move by hand.

The law re housing benefits in Scotland is not a devolved matter. The advice given by the Glasgow Advice Agency applies equally in any part of the UK. Ultimately the final decision rests with your local council whichever part of the country you live in. Your council would be hard pressed to justify calling the room you describe a bedroom. Note that there is no strict legal definition of "bedroom". One would suppose that as a basic minimum there should be a bed and the room is suitable for sleeping in. The new regulations clearly and repeatedly stress "bedroom" If a room is used for any other purpose than that which is reasonably associated with bedrooms then it is not a bedroom. By the logic used in the regulations if you were to empty your front room and put a bed in there then this could be classed as a bedroom and you could be asked to pay for it or lose benefits.