Contributions-based job-seekers allowance and part-time work

[ElliesWellies]

Posting on behalf of my dad, hope that is ok.

My dad has recently been made redundant and there has been a disaster over his redundancy pay; it is with his union's lawyers at the moment. He has as yet received no money, but the likelihood is that he will receive what he is entitled to in terms of redundancy money...eventually.

In the meantime, he is starting a claim for contributions-based JSA. He is looking for work, but only part-time work, as he is approaching retirement age and starting to wind down, plus my mum also works part-time, and between them they could get by without him having a full-time job.

I understand that if he started working part-time, it would affect the amount of JSA he is entitled to, but this isn't what he intends - he would like to get a part-time job and then stop claiming JSA altogether.

My question is - would the job centre accept the fact that he is only searching for part-time work, or would they require him to look for full-time work in order to receive his JSA?

Also, a friend of theirs has suggested that he should not tell them that he is looking for part-time work as he would only receive 'part-time JSA' - by this I think she means that if he was looking for two days' work a week, he would only receive two days a weeks' worth of JSA, i.e. 2/5 of the full amount. This doesn't sound right to me, but I have tried looking it up and can't find anything.

Any advice would be much appreciated, TIA.