On Sat, 4 Oct 2003 16:50:59 +0100, "BillR"
wrote:

You don't get such grants from the Job Centre directly but the first step is
to get income-related Job seekers allowance.
To get this you have to sign on every 2 weeks.
From this other benefits such as income support and housing benefits will
flow.

That is exactly right. In fact I thought that they recently changed
the rules so that the sign-on was every week?

If you have any kind of savings of a few £k, or your partner has or is
working then you won't get any of these.

It's worse than that even. If you have children and the grandparents
have given them sizeable funds for their building society accounts
then the terms are that you have to spend that money before you go
claiming off the state.

Having been thru claiming the dole (or JSA as it is today) a couple of
times this is a fiendish exercise at best - you get treated like a
criminal for claiming JSA, assumed to be a no-gooder who doesn't want
to work.

Interestingly, if you have money in shares then you don't have to own
up to it when you claim JSA. They crawl all over your bank and
building society accounts, but not shares. Little wonder that better
off people get preferential treatment compared with the average guy on
the street!

If you're incapable of work due to some disability then you should claim the
benefit appropriate to that, these are medically investigated.

For sure. And I understand it can be a long and painful (literally
perhaps!) process to get awarded anything. Their starting position is
that you are fit for work and it is for you to disprove that.

PoP