Does redundancy payment count as savings? Help!

[NinePeedles]

My dh is being made redundant soon. His redundancy pay would pay off our mortgage, but if we do that would it mean we would not be eligible for any benefits?
The mortgage is the only debt we have, and while the idea of being mortgage free is tempting, we still have to live and pay bills.
We have never been in this situation before and it all seems very confusing and scary.
Any advice?

According to Turn2Us

Contribution-based JSA - You can get this for up to six months if you have been working and have paid enough national insurance contributions within the last couple of years. It is paid just for you. Income-based JSA has different criteria, including things like savings. Certainly worth discussing your plans for the redundancy money with the Job Centre when you apply.

no, it is discounted for jobseeker's allowance.

btw, if you don't pay off your mortgage, you wouldn't get benefits to cover it.
(they can pay your interest, though)

you can still get council tax benefit etc, so worth doing it it works that way (and it means you won't have to worry about your roof)

I don't know the rules in that level of detail so this is ignorant comment, but I would definitely use it to pay off the mortgage - that would be effectively a permanent increase in income equivalent to your current monthly payments which would last longer (and possibly be equivalent in value to) any benefits you might be awarded if you didn't. Plus it would give your DH the freedom to seek a new direction without having to think "I must earn X p/a or we can't afford the mortgage" which is a wonderful opportunity.

I think it would stop you from getting income based benefits, but then having the redundancy money would do that anyway

It shouldn't interfere with the six months contribution based jsa though

I definitely think you should pay off the mortgage if you can.

then you have the freedom to choose a lowerpaid job as xkcd says

this website is really useful

Thanks for all your replies. There is a lot of stuff to get our heads around now it is real. Had hoped to secure another job to go to but it hasn't happened (yet!)