income based V contribution based

[mikeyboy2010]

Up until Nov last year I was homeless and living on the streets claiming income based JSA, in the Nov I was advised to go onto ESA due to various mental health problems which I did and was put on contribution based ESA then after a spell in a council B&B I was offered a flat and applied for a community care grant in Feb to help with furnishing the property, I was turned down for the grant the reason being I was on a contribution based benefit.

I appealed the decision in the begining of march and today finally got a reply after phoning every week and was told they would not be changing the decision, can anyone please tell me why I went from income based to contribution based benefit ??? I was told by an advisor at the job centre that the fact that I could have gone onto either income based or contribution based meant I had an underlying entitlement to the grant HELP !!!!!!!! lol

[ErikaPNP]

The advisor at the jobcentre is incorrect I am afraid. There is no such thing as underlying entitlement to Social Fund loans and grants; they are not like other benefits.

 

She is also incorrect about you being able to go onto either income based or contributon based ESA. You will be assessed for both but there is no choice on either your part or the part of the decision maker's as to whether you receive Income related ESA or contributory based ESA. The decision they make is whether or not you qualify for ESA at all.

 

With ESA (and any other contributory based benefit), if you have paid in sufficient National Insurance contributions you will receive contributory based allowance. If you have paid in contributions but this not enough to receive the applicable amount to your circumstances and you satisfy the income conditions, you will receive ESA © with a top up of ESA (IR) - a top up of the (IR) element even if it is one pence means you would be on a qualifying benefit for CCG purposes. It is the same for JSA. For the old IB, you would receive IB with a top up of IS. If you have not paid enough conts at all, the entire claim will be Income Related.

 

I think I know where your advisor is confused. When you apply for ESA, you are assessed for both (IR) and ©. I've seen the screens for ESA (well prints of the screens).

 

It has a sum under both ESA © and ESA (IR). This is usually the same amount. If the sum under ESA (IR) is higher than the sum under ESA © then you are getting Income Related ESA. If the sum under ESA (IR) is the same as, or lower than the sum under ESA ©, you are getting contributory based ESA.

 

From what you have said it appears that the sum under ESA (IR) is the same as that under ESA © which means that if you were not entitled to the contributory based, you would be entitled to the income based. But this does not entitle you to a community care grant, because a qualifying benefit for the purpose of a social fund loan must be in award. Your award is ESA ©.

 

It will also have an area on that print stating "made up from" and some letters next to it. If it has the letters EC, it's contribution based. If it has the letters EI, it's income related.

[mikeyboy2010]

thanks for clearing things up Erika not so confused now lol

Is it normal to go from income based back onto contribution based benefit when changing fron jsa to esa ????

[ErikaPNP]

It can happen, yes. It's about how much contributions you paid in during the qualifying years. When you claimed JSA you might not have had enough contributions in the qualifying years that were relevant at the time you made your JSA claim. When you made your ESA claim, the qualifying years may have changed forward to years when you did pay sufficient NI contrinutions. In November the qualifying years would have been 06/07 and 07/08

[antone]

thanks for clearing things up Erika not so confused now lol

Is it normal to go from income based back onto contribution based benefit when changing fron jsa to esa ????

 

I wouldn't say it's "normal", as such, but I can think of a way that it can happen. The contribution requirements you need to satisfy for ESA are slightly less stringent than those for JSA. If you have worked in the last few years, but perhaps not for a while, this could be the explanation.

 

The full explanation is quite complicated, but here's the "York Notes" version:

 

There are two conditions you need to satisfy to qualify for ESA©. The first condition is the relevant one here. For a claim made in 2010, the tax years they will look at are 2008-2009, 2007-2008 and 2006-2007. To satisfy the condition, in any one of those three tax years, you must have actually paid (not been credited with) NI on an income that is 25 times the weekly Lower Earnings Limit for NI contributions. In practice, this means that you need to have earned something around £2000 (I forget the precise figures, and they vary each year anyhow) or more.

 

My understanding is that for JSA, only the most recent two years are considered. So if you did some work in 2006-2007, but not in the later two years, you might find that you get income-based JSA but ESA©.

 

On previewing: Erika's explanation is the obvious one. That's the trouble with benefit processors - we hear hooves, we look for zebras

 

And also I missed the fact that you claimed in 2009. So move all the tax years back one year: 2008-2009 will not be considered, 2005-2006 will be.

[ErikaPNP]

Thank you Antone - I was hoping you'd pop along.

 

Antone's very good with ESA.