Road/track.cyclepath traveller/commuter type. Includes steep short inclines on mostly flat terrain.

The rules have changed now. Beware! Do not sign off JSA or ESA or you could be penalised. Get expert advice.

I have got two conflicting reports. I am not receiving this premium when I used to on JSA. Any references so I can take it up with the DWP please?

Is this premium excluded if you are DLA (lower rate) and ESA please? I used to get it with JSA though?

A good point Capaign issue: the TV Licnce is rather poor value for a single person who watches TV about once or twice a week, compared to the same rate for a family with children and TV in each room. I think there should be a single person lesser rate for the best value. Over Christmas I could not find anything to watch at all.

My TV aerial fell off the roof (in the storm) so I rang up asking if I still had to pay as I could not get reception (not even through the Internet). I then discovered that I had overpaid by this method of fortnightly installments. Not really worth cancelling my licence but I was pleasantly surprised I did not need to pay for 6 months and I was £109.80 overpaid. Worth a try if you have been paying for a bit.

Write it down on your job log or apply for the job anyway. I sign up with Recruitment Agencies and just cut and paste including reference numbers. Reference numbers are important if I want to track the application. It is easier. Does not mean I don't forget to record some. Just less likely to.

Contact a group called Headway who help rehabilitation for people with acquired brain injuries. They do not do benefit advice though. Note that you will be seen by a ATOS doctor and it is the DWP that will make the decision.

PS: Don't forget the Job Centre people are meant to help you find work and not just dole out the Government spare change. So there are people to help you. Like Careers Advice (search online), cheap computers (£100 desktop), computer training courses to give you skills, probably other training as well. I wish I was young now as there did not seem to be the opportunties when I was younger. Reslience is a key word. The courses should give you the support to enable you to gain the resilience to get a job of there any suitable ones around. The theory is that it should help with asthma and depression. It really depends how good these people are at doing their job. The Work Programme advisors are just recruitment specialists and are a bit limited in their abilities. They are not supportive and maybe recruitment in the dog eat dog world they shouldn't be. Because the work place is sometimes not like that. The WP does help 10% find jobs. Good luck. You do not really want to be too ill to work. I know from past experience. PS: get a second opinion from from one of the administrators or somebody experienced. I have not worked for any advisory agency and my experience is as a claimant and I do not know what happens at the DWP end.

1) Doctor: have a word with him and explain the position. I am not qualified or think it is my job to advise on this. If want to claim ESA you will need a fitness note (or sickness note). It will specifiy a period of time, say 3 months. The GP can add comments like restrictions in the type of work you can do. It would be worth going to the Doctor and try and get his advice anyway. Sometimes they may feel that suitability for work is outside their remit. I went to my doctor for purpose to be cured, but it will take time for me. I asked for a prognosis. It was not advantageous for me to claim ESA so it was different. I am much older. 2) If you want to claim ESA you have to ring up the DWP will send you a form to complete, or the large form can be completed online. You will have to sign off JSA and it is important to do this because the claim for ESA will be delayed. 3) Then you receive the assessment rate of ESA until you have to attend an ATOS asessment which may take 13 weeks or more. ATOS will almost certainly examine you not by a Doctor but another health professional. Most probably they will give you nil points and pronounce you fit for work. Then you can appeal. At this stage, if not now, you may need more expert advice. So it is a rather circular process. So I would not be very keen to do it, unless you really are quite ill. Doctors seem to know all about this and may not sign a sickness certificate. The DWP may write to your GP for a medical opinion, tests etc. I liked this to make sure I was getting adequate medical treatment on the NHS. There is an alternative after going to your Doctor. You could ask the Job Centre if you can see the Disability Advisor. This may not be possible because they are very busy people. There is one great advantage for claiming ESA and that is the opportunity to do permitted part time work and get paid up to £100 a week in addition to your benefit. This last lasts for one year and is meant to ease you into full time work with people with reduced capacity medical conditions. If you want to take that route ask about it, saying for medical reasons you do not think you are capable of doing full time work straight away. It will be just as competitive trying to get those jobs so you have to make it clear about it.

Orders of action: 1) Go to see your Doctor. Get a fitness note. You doctor has the option to recommend working with conditions. 2) Have a word with the Job Centre staff and ask for a meeting with the Disablement Officer (optional) 3) Ring up DWP.

I had the same sort of problem, a physical intermittent ailment and I am in process of changing over and I can advise of the procedure and the snags. There are also advantages. However, it is also possible for this to result in a large reduction in benefit, so I cannot reeocmmend this action for everyone. The three pertinent questions to ask are 1) Do you receive the DLA premium in addition to JSA? (If so, at what rate?) This is IMPORTANT. 2) What is your age? 3) Are you on the Work Programme? Or do you visit the Job Centre? (or have you been on the Work Programme before?) You can reply privately if you want. You will have to have a word with your Doctor and he will have to send in medical certificates and this might be the first step regardless.

A few years ago, on JSA I got a free suit and a choice of three outfitters and rather a standard boring design.

Quite right. I should have explained. If you are claiming JSA withn a Disability Premium, there may be a disadvantage going on ESA as the disability premium is no longer paid if you are on lower scale DLA. Beware. After the asessment (which may take 13 weeks or even longer: ATOS may have have backlogs of over 3 months) the ESA claimant may be available for the WRAG component in addition to basic ESA. ESA claimants are eligible for "permitted work" which is part time for one year. This is what I am trying for.

When I rang up DWP they said if it is not sorted within two weeks, an advance may be available. You may find you get a small amount when the JSA claim is closed down.

I think you will find that anxiety will probably decrease if you collaborate with plans that are designed to help him. I can see problems if the client cannot find any suitable jobs to apply for. There is a place to purchase refurbished computers. Ask about this. Volunteering may be like a job trial. My WP advises me to that to make it clear than when volunteering that you are looking for permanent employment and she/he both suggested that the trial period should not exceed a month in duration as this is enough time to consider whether or not you are suitable for paid work. Discusssion has emerged that you are expected to try a bit. Just how hard the client tries is open to question. I do it in spurts followed by periods of disillusionment. The more you try (with proper support) the more your resilience increases and this improves your chances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_resilience It is also possible to get free Internet access at the Library. I think some people join the equivalent of a Job Club where people in the same position all prepare their CVs etc. I got a job once through this system. The job was underpaid, without prospects, which caused difficulties. I think if you resist their attempts to help you will get more grief and anxiety that resisting them.

A holdup occurs if you don't sign off JSA straightaway. Because I became ill I made a mistake of changing benefit as I get £53 less a week on ESA. I would not recommend this change unless you are very ill.

My view is I wish we had this facility when I was younger. It beats looking through newspapers and paying for stamps etc. However, it does mean more competition for jobs. The best bet to improve my chances is to sign on with the Recruitment Agencies and UJ gives a lead on how to do this. Job clubs were quite good in the past. I got a job through them, but it was too far away from home. Guidance in completing CVs is good as well. Mine was not up to scratch. It really needs checking. I got help from Careers Advice. I live in an employment black spot as evidenced by the location of suitable jobs. Too far away for my comfort and that has been the case for years.

Correction. I have several CVs and I choose which one is most approrpiriate. Jobs with application forms ask how previous experience fits in with roles demanded of the job. I treat this bit as important. It all tricky though. e.g. I think I am reasonably good at dealing with the public, but if I was doing it all day, it would wear me out. Interviews are OK, public speaking, TV, presentations Ok, but if you want me to waffle on all day like a radio presenter, or expect me to have the stamina of a teacher all day. Think again, it would wear me out. Some people are extraverted and some people are introverted and with the best will in the world, I am not an ideal salesman. Work Programme advisors often comes from a sales/recruitment background. Some of their clients are not of this type and do not naturally get on together and it can be a rather difficult relationship. PS: my approach to an interview is do some groundwork to respond to any awkward questions and reduce the inevitable bit where I have to perform on my feet. All good fun like an actor in a play with a very loose script and I can adapt my words to circumstances. I try to be precise and clear. The only thing that throws me is if the interviewer repeats the same question I have already answered. This just puzzles me. It is like he has not understood my first answer.

Addenda: skilled professional interviewers with big firms are to my taste. Bosses of small businesses and it is all personalities. His personality usually. I do not usually try and fit my act towards the job on offer as the recruitment specialists are most keen on. Maybe I am wrong as I am out of work? I just try to be myself. The thinking is that I just say what I am and what I can do and hope they can fit a square peg into a round hole. Adaptability is not a weakness nor a strong point. My reasoning is that I have done too many jobs that I have been unhappy in. Do others try and tailor the job application and interview towards the job in question? I do research as far as possible and quite often quite a lot, even as much as getting a street opinion of the firm from someone who has worked there. I would not normally go as far as reducing my qualifications or experience on my job appplication form to give me better chances. I have done so without success.

Interviews and interviewers come in numerous states from employers who just want the face to fit to employers that cannot make up their mind. There is only two tendencies I have observed over above the random, that young pretty girl get certain jobs with certain managers even though they are not the best at doing the job (arguable) and women managers employing single mothers and the secondary demands of their children mean they do not provide a very reliable service to customers. Both are extremely annoying, the second one much more so. I also really dislike it when interviews are obviously lines from a script and that there is no opportunity to be informal. I have received lots of job applications, mostly speculative, over a thousand in total, when I was in business. They were all very much the same and most people were overqualified. I was looking for intelligence not realms of qualifications. As an employer, I have learnt not to work on emotional reactions, the face fits, as it can go horribly wrong. Not sure what the best way to go about choosing employees but it is not the single interview. Psychological profiling might be better. This happens and can be off-putting because the interviewer might be working to a script and boxes are ticked. For administrative jobs, I have found that you are excluded for initiative. It is just not wanted nowadays. I never put down disabled just to get an interview. I did that twice and I thought I got messed about. I want too get a job on merit, not charity.

Sometimes the term "horse****" is used. If you think your fellow employees are crazy and you don't want to be driven crazy yourself ...

I have employed someone like this. With confidence in his own field, his stammer goes away completely. A star in his own right. He plans it, of course. I think he gets too detailed but I just let him get on with it, cause it works. I do not attempt to baulk his style. I just try to support his efforts as far as possible. He is good with children.

Addenda: the way that some work advisors browbeat their clients is counter productive to some clients. There personalities do not respond this way. It may work for some people. Itis a dog eat dog world, sometimes, especially in retail in sales. Some adverts for job advisors ask for experience in sales. Not my forte and I am not impressed. It may actually suit about 45% of the working age group, so they are not wrong. Just a little bit less than half right. I think the Job Shop initiative may work better for some out of work people. For those people who are shy rather than avoidant?

A very good post and along the lines I am thinking of. Key points extracted by me: Avoidance as a technique is a lose-lose scenario. Unless you want avoidance as a way of life. Not recommended. Resilience is something to try and attain. When people undergo a crisis and a loss of confidence, the objective (my view) is try to develop the resilience, which some people may say is strength or confidence. Whereas confidence can only be attained by your own efforts (beware of adversaries), resilience may need a support group. One thing that the Work Programme advisors do not help with is attaining resilience. There is another factor that comes into play and is ignored. That is the suitability of personalities to the jobs they are looking for. Trying to get jobs which you are unsuited to does nothing for confidence or resilience, nothing for the employer either, and is generally a waste of time. Therein is an interesting study of how to get people into work, trying to match their aptitudes (rather than skills) to their best jobs. I would thought this would be careers advice. But the work programme does not do this. It matches skills only. I am trying to think my way around this. Resilience has been shown to be more than just the capacity of individuals to cope well under adversity. Resilience is better understood as the opportunity and capacity of individuals to navigate their way to psychological, social, cultural and physical resources that may sustain their well-being, and their opportunity and capacity individually and collectively to negotiate for these resources to be provided and experienced in culturally meaningful ways. (wiki)