Working
and claiming Incapacity Benefit
On Your Behalf Professor Eileen
Evason meets John - a man who’s on incapacity, but would love
to do a few hours work a week! Will Eileen have good news for John?
If you have a benefits query e mail On Your Behalf – CLICK
HERE
Or like John, who has a query
about Incapacity benefit why not put pen to paper and write a letter
to Eileen Evason! On Your Behalf, BBc Ormeau Avenue, Belfast BT2
8HQ
Professor
Eileen Evason says
Persons in receipt of incapacity
benefit are awarded this as they are deemed to be incapable of work.
Sometimes, however, those on this benefit may feel that they could
do some work although they are nowhere near being ready, or able,
to return to normal, full time employment. Where people are thinking
of doing, say, a few hours a week they need to be very careful for
two reasons. First, any work that is done will have to be reported
to the Social Security Agency and, on foot of this, the Agency might
feel that it would be appropriate to re-assess entitlement to incapacity
benefit. Secondly, the rules governing when work is permitted are
complex and people need to make sure they know about- and stay within-
these.
Put briefly, there are four main situations where work may be permitted.
a) You can work and remain entitled to benefit provided you earn
less than £20 (net) a week. Even though this will involve
very few hours of employment, such work must still be reported to
the Social Security Agency.
b) Additionally, you can work and keep your benefit provided you
do not earn more than £81 a week and the work that you do
is part of a medically supervised programme.
c) Thirdly, you can work and keep your benefit for up to 26 weeks
(this can be extended) provided that you do not earn more than £81
a week, work for under 16 hours a week and the work is part of a
strategy to help to get you back into full time employment.
d) Finally, people in supported employment, for example sheltered
workshops, can work and keep their benefit provided that they do
not earn more than £81 a week.
People on incapacity
benefit who are starting to think about getting back to work should
also be aware of the way in which Working Tax Credit may be relevant
to them. Working Tax Credit is a mean-tested benefit for those in
full time employment. It does, however, have features designed to
encourage people with disability back into work. Thus, persons with
a disability which puts them at a disadvantage when seeking work
get extra help if they are able to secure employment. Also, for
such persons full -time work means 16 hours a week or more.
Clearly people should seek advice- many are unaware of how complicated
the rules are. It’s a good idea to talk all of this over with
your local CAB or independent advice centre.
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