benefis advice and studying please

[sophiecountessofwessex]

posted this message in money advice section too,

will get my dh to go to CAB - there is a local surgery next friday however i thought i would tap into the absolute wealth of knowledge that is mumsnet.

my dh is going to be unemployed soon because of the end of his contract.

i am in full time employment. we have 3 children. one is 16 and himself will be working in June.

right. heres the thing. hes seriously thinking of re-training to be a social worker. he already has a degree and we have done some research and he could go straight into doing a 2 year masters in social work rather than the 3 years degree - becuase he has a degree ( politics)

so, a friend told me that he would be able to get job seekers allowence - something like £56pw. and he would be able to go into further education for a year and travel expenses, course fees and such would be paid - anyone know anything about this?

also will i get more family tax credits to help out? is there a website that shows household income proportionate to WFTC - in definate figures so i absolutley know how much we may be entitled to?

also social work degrees have a bursery - have lookedo n the social work website ( cant remember its name) and it never mentioned a specific figure.

what i need to know is te best rout to go down to make sur our family stays on its feet.

should we claim benefits or should he stack shelves at tesco in he evening with a take home pay of approx £100 pw. and study during the day.

any advice or 'inkings' at all would be much appreciated.

becuase we have made a deal that if he does it for 2 years and we struggle through then i can re-train as a social worker too becuase i despise my job so much.

thank you so much. i will shamelessly bump this as its so important
thank you

Hi Sophie. No, in a nutshell. To get any sort of jsa he must be capable of and actively seeking work. Full time students are specifically exempt.

Income support would not be paid-you are in full time work.

You might get more tc, check out the Inland Revenue website (google them-sorry, feeding baby + can't link). Depends on your income tbh. You might find no difference. Bursaries are normally treated as income, as are, ffs, student loans.

Course, if you were both students the situation would change. Depending on circs eg amount of bursary, you would get the interest on your mortgage paid (after 6 months)/housing benefit, council tax benefit, Income Support, full tax credits...other things too. Is it worth doing that and getting it out of the way?

I think social work burseies are means tested, which is why no figure is mentioned, but don't quote me!

ROFL at your name here btw.

wow - err didn't think of that. wow wow. will have to work things out. may be too tight. but work thinking about.

I have similar, am thinking of retraining (from benefits advisor to prob midwifery). I'm coming to the conclusion that though money may be incredibly tight, we'll actually be so much better off eventually that it'll be worth it. But its the day to day stuff that makes it so hard, I think.

have posted on your other thread.

absolutely. we worked out that we would be able to manage to pay our bills ( and debts including previous student loans grrrrr) on my wage. which would mean in effect that there would be no "quality of life" stuff going on - kwim? so no sat night pizza or going to pub to play pool 2-3 times a month, that kind of thing.

but i am so very unhappy at the moment that i would relish being on bones of mi arse to get my brain in active circulation again. however dont think in reality dh will see this POV. worth having a discussion about though.

i have more questions hope you dont mind mumsnet.

if i stopped work to re-train will this hinder my entitlement to benefits ie. making myself intentionally unemployed?

we could get housing benefit for rent, council tax, what else?

we couldnt get another student loan could we?

how the hell would we live then? would we get income support?

also

i have another option

i could go part-time at work - they would absolutley go for it i know they would.

so would i get more benefits working part-time? so just over 16 hours entitles me to wftc - and would i get housing benefit, council tax and anything else - but still have part -tiome wage to live on?

does ANY of that make ANY sense at all?

SCW, if you went back to work part timeand was earning less than 14000 IIRC, then you will qualify for WFTC and CTC, plus housing benefit etc, also free prescriptions, eye tests etc.

if you were studing you get 25% off council tax i was told
hth

Ok, most likely scenario is that you would get a full bursary each, possibly with extra for the kids (I think). You would then get the full or nearly full amount of tax credits for your kids. You'd also get housing benefit and actually, thinking about it, would exempt from council tax unless there are other adults in the property.

During the summer holidays you can claim JSA. Obviously you have to actually look for work.

You might be better off financially going part time. Its tricky. You do lose housing benefit and would have to pay council tax, also free prescriptons, school meals, etc etc. So its hard to say.

What you need to do is go into a CAB or similar and ask them to do something called a "better off calculation" which is where they look at how much you will get under the different circimstances. However, they will almost certainly not have details of the social work bursary-suggest you give someone a ring about this and find out how much you'd get and whether it affects benefits.

BTW I made a mistake before, you wouldn't get income support if you were both students, I was thinking you were a lone parent which of course you're not!

OK can I just say that actually working within the benefits system, the entitlements surrounding students and training etc is very complicated and not as straightforward as everybody thinks. Every scenario is different and there is a whole Chapter of the Jobseekers Allowance Act dedicated to syudents in their entirity.

I would suggest that your dh goes and speaks to a personal adviser at the Jobcentre to discuss his particular issue(s).

sophie-this is how we do it-
dp is a student,he gets a student loan of £6000 a year-and a bit of a grant for being a mature student and having children(not sure how much,but not much)

I work 16 hours a week,
My CTC is approx £300 per month
My WFTC is approx £250 per month
Then obviously child benefit

The big issue we have is that as Dp is now a part time student we have to pay full Council Tax of £140
per month!!

Student loan is put down as income when you apply for Council Tax benefit or JSA

Dp works in holidays so we manage.
Hope this helps,we have a 6yr old and a 1yr old

Sophie-keep us posted here! I'd love to know what you end up doing. Might inspire me to do something more with my life!

And of course, Helsi's right, its not straightforward, you do need advice specific to your circumstances. I'd personally recomend a CAB, they are independent, and well trained. However, it might be worth seeing an advisor at the local university as they will be used to dealing with student finanace. Don't know if they'll see you if you're not a student but surely worth a try?

we're still all muddled with options. will keep you updated. dh is almost certainly going for the masters.

we have come to a comprimise - i think - it may change but we worked out how much we need to live.

split it in half.

and as long as we each cover half i can go PT at work and maybe study.

all depends on him getting a Pt job and how much he earns and when he works as well as when the university units are and what days i will have to take off ( we all know FT study isn't FT) and i cant tell my employers " hay am going pt so i can re-train to get out of this power mad regime and get paid more!!" so will have to make up childcare issues or sommat. and ask if they are willing to be flexible if i work 22 or 23 hours PW - will it matter when? i dont think they will be too rigid

besides my director has set a president she doesn't work fridays at all since having her 2nd child.

so yes will keep you updated.

Did you say that your dh already has a degree? Is this course of study postgraduate?
Sorry to p*ss on the bonfire, but state funding for postgrad courses is pretty much non-existent, although is a small bursary for social work. See the \link{http://www.dfes.gov.uk/studentsupport/students/pos_postgraduate_st.shtml\DfES postgrad website}. BUT, there is a \link{http://www.gscc.org.uk/Training+and+learning/Become+a+social+worker/Bursaries\social care bursary} available. Amount available is not huge, and my dh works in social care so can vouch that the wages earned once qualified are not huge either.

Me and my husbadn are both at university in scotland, we get student loans, our fees paid and childcare money in a lump sum, we are in 3rd year undergraduate.
In the summer holidays we are entitled to NOTHiNG from the state apart from a small loan from the social fund of about 200 pounds whihc we have to pay back.
Our council tax gets paid too, all year round and we get tax credits of about 30 pounds a week and fee school dinners etc
now due to dh being lazy, never has worked for 4 years while we been studying, I work most summers though but we are not entitles to anything else and have no savings so the only money comes form the loans and my work and tax credits are the only thing you get and nhs extemption certificate,
you cannot sign on , unless I think lone parents can in some cases, but they are alone and need the money. postgrad we can't do it as far as I can see with our set up and lazy manas there is hardly any funding and it is hard to get any. don't know if this helps, your situation is different though as you have own house assests maybe savings and more kids I just have one ds. don't know if this helps

you can't claim jsa on a continuing course like a 2 year one or a degree as the loan is mean to cover 52 weeks of the year, I know - we tried (lazy dh's idea)

That's odd because here I can claim IS in the long summer break between academic years - I'm in England not Scotland though

Yes I think if it is not a continuing course it is okay in scotland, one year I did claim as I changed courses so it technically was not a contunuing course, that is good for you though!
Wish it were the same here in Scotladn