How different is Universal Credit to JSA.
guttridge
Posts: 1,884 Forum Member
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hI FOLKS HAVE JUST HAD TO SIGN BACK ON. but now told i will have to do Universal Credit what is the differnmt between this and JSA? i read it online. but what the point. every 2 weeks seem fine it is now once a moth.
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I agree with you re the 2 week to 1 month payment period change. The Tories have some strange fetish with making the receipt of benefits 'the same as if you were in work' which is a bit of a joke when you realise a lot of people get paid weekly.
Still, it's made some technology, procurement and project management companies very happy as IDS spent a fortune in building the UC system.
I've not flipped a gasket, this goes back to when first Universal Credit was announced. It stuck just because of my age, and thinking/hoping if I lived to see my 90's then - possibly - I might have enough energy left to be concerned..:p
1) Approx 6 week wait until first UC payment compared to approx 2 weeks on JSA. During the waiting period you may be able to receive interim payments if in difficulty. Also you are not paid for the first 7 days of your claim on UC, these are called waitiing days. JSA claims are not paid for the first 3 days of your claim.
2) Payments made monthly (same day every month) not fortnightly. Included in your payment will be any rent that you claim, which you then have to pay to the landlord.
3) Conditions to be met to receive payment are far tougher. Currently on JSA you are required to complete a minimum or 3 steps each week to find employment, although if you do 3 steps your claim will come under very close scrutiny. On UC you are required to prove that you are job searching for a minimum of 35 hours per week, failure to do this will result in a sanction.
4) As UC is replacing JSA and most in work benefits the 35 hour requirement must also be met by claimants who currently work less than 35 hours or earn less than the equivalent of 35 hours minimum wage. So if you work 20 hours per week and claim UC you must prove that you have spent 15 hours searching for alternative employment/ extra hours. In work claimants will have to attend Job Centres fortnightly as the unemployed do now. Failure to meet these requirements will result in a sanction, the same as for the unemployed. Also note that the right to take a holiday has been removed from UC, even for those who are working. If you go on away on holiday, this will be classed as failing to meet the requirements and you will be sanctioned. If you holiday at home, you will be required to job search for up to 35 hours.
5) The sanction regime is a lot tougher. Currently on JSA, if you are sanctioned you can still have your housing benefit and council tax paid. On UC both of these benefits will be stopped for the duration of any sanction.
So what evidence have you got to show exactly to prove you're spending a minimum of 35 hours per week job searching? Realistically, It doesn't actually take 35 hours or so per week searching for work!!
Also you said people can be sanctioned if they go away on holiday. Does that apply to people who sign off to go on holiday for a week or two(or however long) and then sign on again when they return? I sincerely hope not as that is very harsh, people are entitled to a holiday but not whilst still claiming benefits.
As for holidaying at home(staying within the UK), people are hardly going to go on holiday to get away and then spend 35 hours or more a week job searching!
Now Universal credit is so much stricter. You have to come in and see your work coach once a week and force you to take up any job they offer you.
If you turn down cleaning job in mcdonalds, you could be sanctioned for up to 3 years
That may have been the case once, but it hasn't been since 2010.
She didn't even check I had, until in my last meeting, I said, "I've not been able to log in for the past two weeks - and technical support haven't been able to help me. Written what jobs I've applied for down though". Apparently, what I had written - date, job applied for, etc, wasn't good enough, because it didn't state "how long I'd spent looking for jobs".
A bit of an argument ensued, because her only words were, "this isn't evidence". I kept asking what "evidence" she needed - to which she could only say, "evidence that you've been looking for jobs". Tried showing everything to prove I'd been looking - saved searches on about ten different job apps on my phone, emails I'd received from job websites with potential job matches, etc, but simply because it wasn't typed into the Universal Jobmatch website I couldn't access, it wasn't 'evidence' - and then she went on to say, "Also, this isn't a lot of jobs you've applied for" (there were about thirty over the fortnightly period). I think I said something along the lines of, "Well, I was going to apply for that position as a Professor of Nuclear Physics at the University, but I thought I was a bit over-qualified with my Bachelor of Arts".
Needless to say, she wasn't a fan of sarcasm, especially not when I pointed out that the "Northern Powerhouse" wasn't doing much for all the "poor sods" in the Job Centre right now, and I was sanctioned. The joke is, had I have said nothing, she probably wouldn't have checked - so there's a lesson there for Jobseekers - don't be honest, or else you'll have some jobsworth pissflap talk to you as if you're dirt. Luckily, I only had to spend about two-three weeks on absolutely no money until the reference came through, and I never had to see the fat, sour-faced old bat again. Made an official complaint, but heard nothing back from it.
It's an absolute absurdity requiring people to spend a certain amount of time looking for jobs - because how do you know that time's spent well? Oh, spent two hours looking for work - when in actual fact, you spent half an hour on that on the bus getting there, an hour walking around town and getting something to eat, and ten minutes to see if they were looking for someone at HMV. Surely far better to have a minimum requirement of Job applications?!
Yeah, don't get me started on the ****ing Jobcentre. An absolute shower of shite. I don't know much about Universal Credit though, so I can't help you there. I just wanted to vent.
I would say the worst one I've heard this week is the man who was sanctioned because he was unshaven, according to a Glasgow foodbank, who tweeted asking for razor donations.
Try telling that to my mate who has been sanctioned twice since being on jsa. He isnt the best writer/typer and has this nasty woman at the job centre who he is sure has it in for him. He got a job over christmas and got laid off again in january and she wasn't pleased about that.
He says she's making him ill.
This has been absolutely shambolic, with some claimants not getting any money towards their rent for 3 months. If you move, it can take that long again for them to process the rent money for the new place. I have personal knowledge of at least 3 clients who have been evicted for rent arrears that only arose because UC is such a shambles, and it hasn't even been in place for a full year in my area.
There are a few other big differences. If you become too ill to look for work on UC, you don't claim ESA, you stay on UC. They take ages to get round to sending out the medical questionnaire and I don't know of a single client who's had the UC work capability assessment yet.
If you find work but are on a low income, you don't get tax credits to top up your income and housing benefit to help with your rent, but UC instead. Anecdotal evidence is that this is every bit as shambolic as everything else to do with UC, and they stop all your money until they know how much you'll be paid. They won't reassess your claim on the basis of your contract.
If you are awarded PIP because of a disability, you won't get the extra £61.85 pw that you may have been entitled to on JSA. There are none of these additional amounts ("premiums") in UC.
For UC alone, never mind all his other efforts to attack the poor and vulnerable, Ian Duncan-Smith deserves something very unpleasant to happen to him.
I sincerely hope he's appealing that sanction. I'm damn positive that there's nothing in UC regulations that requires you not to grow a beard while receiving UC.
You are required to show that you have spent the required number of hours job searching. Time spent on-line job searching, time spent completing application forms, time spent travelling and delivering c.v's to potential employers. Failure to prove that you have spent the minimum number of hours doing this could lead to a sanction.
As far as I am aware there is nothing to stop you doing this, but as the waiting period for your first payment is approximately 6 weeks which would most likely have a major impact on people's finance
Universal Credit requires you to meet all claimant commitments, even during a holiday period. Technically you can go on holiday, but you must still comply with the commitments. People who are in work and in receipt of UC have been sanctioned for failing to do this during a holiday period.
What you have described is the bullying attitude taken by some JC staff. Her claiming that you were failing to provide enough evidence of job searching was simply bluff and her way of bullying you. JSA rules state that a claimant may provide the evidence in any form that they choose, even on the screen of a mobile phone is acceptable, your work coach does not have the authority to dictate how you provide the evidence.
Her saying that you had not stated how long you spent on each action was required is also a load of BS. There is no requirement on JSA to spend x amount of time searching.
As for Universal Jobmatch, again no requirement to use it. The only requirement may be to set up a public profile and upload your c.v. The mistake most people make is to allow their work coach access to their account You cannot be sanctioned for denying your coach access, although many job centre staff will tell you that you can be sanctioned. As I have advised people in the past, when a coach brings up the subject of allowing them access, politely decline and if they try to apply pressure just state that you are not willing to discuss the matter further unless they produce a Mandatory Activity Notification (MAN). This is normally enough to shut the coach up.
The sanction that you received was in all probability unlawful and you should have immediately asked for it to be reconsidered and if upheld taken it to a tribunal. Over 60% of sanctions are overturned if appealed.
A recent sanction case that I dealt with was on the surface a sanction imposed out of spite. There was no grounds for the sanction and the decision maker who I spoke with was adamant that the sanction would stand, was legal and that the claimant would need to take it to a tribunal, which they were willing to do. Funnily enough the sanction was lifted 5 minutes after the telephone conversation with the decision maker ended, but nobody bothered to tell the claimant.
It's a complete and utter disgrace. They seem to think all people claiming benefits are people who don't want to work and who just want to scrounge off the system. The current system needs to be completed scrapped, and a far fairer system introduced. Innocent jobseekers under no circumstances whatsoever should have their benefits stopped . And for those people who clearly are not looking for work and don't want to work, then some sort of action be taken for them, i.e. making them attend job searching courses, giving them job searching training,getting them motivated for the benefits of working and making sure they are applying for jobs.
I'd hate to be on Universal Credit and searching for a job and under the stress and hassle of being under these conditions and having to avoid being sanctioned for stupid unfair reasons. Having to attend the jobcentre every fortnight and giving in my "proof of jobsearch" and them carefully scrutinising it for possible reasons for them pressing the "refer to sanction" link on their in-house PC system. I may be coming up to a period of unemployment again fairly soon if my temp contract ends when it is currently due to end. Luckily the past couple of times I was unemployed I was only between jobs for a period of between 4 and 6 weeks. Though the time before that, I was 8 months out of work, applying for countless jobs but 95% of the time getting no replies to my applications, registering with a number of agencies who never offered me any work, etc. Very frustrating.