Well, I eventually proved what I believed, that I could get paid to write ( note my SEO usage improving and beginning to slip into my articles too !!! ) . However, there is a long way to go before I make it a career. As so many of my earlier articles have detailed, the Job centre have deterred me from any help that they claim is available to people who become self employed, and because I needed the Job Seekers Allowance, I did indeed have to as an adviser said, Do as I was told. I was on Job Seekers Allowance and I had to apply for jobs. I was also told ' You have been found fit for work ' To this I pointed out that actually I had not, and the doctor was writing certificates to state that I was not fit to work at all, not even if as the new medical certificates say ( now called fit notes, not sick notes ) changes were made to my work and working arrangements.
What actually happened was that the government cut the rate at which help with mortgage interest relief was paid, it was one of the very first cuts they made, but the cut that got the media attention and sympathy was the cut to housing benefit, which helps people to pay their rent, and in many cases pays the whole amount. People with mortgages are assumed to be well off, or they can always sell up !!!
I was receiving Incapacity benefit, and did not even have to attend medicals to keep my benefit. However, it was clear that I was going to have to try to get some sort of work, that I might be able to do, in a building that I could access, and a journey on a travel route that I could manage. Nursery nursing, which had been my career was now physically out of the question, and I had no experience of anything else. Of course, I was told to go and do voluntary work to get experience, and normally I am very much an advocate of the mutual benefits to the volunteer and to society of voluntary work, but actually my financial situation was so dire, that I could not afford the time to work for nothing, even for experience. Domestic violence had left me with a suspended possession order on the home I had owned before setting eyes on my husband, and pre-pay meters for gas and electricity. If I had no money, I had no gas, no electricity and....no home. I needed to replace the lost benefits... with a job...like yesterday. Nobody was more surprised than I when I did manage to get a job, with a mini cab firm who hoped to get further contracts for their special educational needs transport division. This involved taking children to school in cabs, for local authority contracts, when the children cannot go to school by normal means. The job was one of the rapidly growing self employed employment scams, when the employee is asked to be employed on a self employed basis and pay their own tax and insurance. Of course, there is no contract and nothing else legally binding either. I, like many others had no choice but to take it....
After two weeks, and the cuts to council budgets really starting to bite, the mini cab firm owner decided that he was not going to get more of these contracts, in fact he was losing them. Possibly, not helped by losing two special needs children in a week, who escaped from the cars and their escort and legged it with the police in pursuit. I by the way, had nothing to do in my capacity with the actual drivers and escorts . On my third Monday, I went in to work as usual and before lunch was taken into a separate office , where I was told that the post had been reconsidered and I was no longer needed. I had been attending Pathways to Work, the successor to the New Deal programme, to try to get people with disabilities into jobs, so on arriving home and calling a couple of friends, to tell them that they were to stop celebrating my employed status, ..two down and more to go and for me to disappoint ,I called the pathways to work office, to speak to my adviser.
Pathways to work advised me that I was to contact the Department of Work and pensions, tell them what had happened and make what was called a rapid reclaim for my benefits. I actually pointed out to her that this might not be so, since I had in fact worked, even if the firm did have to rebuild the staircase for me to even start the job. My fears were proven right and after a lengthy process it turned out that I would have been wise to not take the job , or for that matter any job at all. My Incapacity benefit, would have been safe until my name came up for medicals and reconsideration as the coalition migrated claimants to the new Employment and Support Allowance , but in the meantime, they had quietly and with no warning to claimants closed the rapid reclaim facility for Incapacity benefit. This meant that with the new benefit having a different qualifying criteria, I and many in my position would be forced to claim JSA, which is paid at a much lower rate than sickness benefits. Also, On JSA..( Job seekers allowance ) you are considered fit, so you look for work, any work..not work you can do..and you compete with able bodied people. ..You do as you are told !!!
For a brief period I protested, yes I had worked but had needed support to get work, and adaptations made to the building, and my health had not improved by magic because I had worked..I pointed out that I had been forced to work by the cuts...I saw a couple of benefit advisers, who on listing my sight problems, joint problems, high blood pressure, heart condition and anxiety and depression felt that I should be exempt from work and claiming Disability Living allowance. When I pointed out that I had gone through six unsuccessful claims for that, I was left to get on with it on JSA, and the trying to cope on a cut of over £40 a week to the benefit I had been on did no good at all for my blood pressure and heart condition, and so my health deteriorated further. The GP wrote certificates, The Job centre insisted that if I submitted them, no claim for sickness benefit would be accepted and once I came up for medical, I would be put back on to JSA, as in the words of the Jobs centre I was 'Highly employable' .and they admitted that these days it is ATOS, who decide if you can work or not, and not your GP.....
And so came the idea of self employment as I wrote the blog about my experiences being an older person with health issues, looking for work. Regular readers will be well aware of the outcome of my attempts to be self employed and get support to help me do so.
My original vision had been to turn the blog into a consultancy for people in the same position as myself and so to start a business. However, it is possible that I may have to accept I have started an opportunity to make money for myself, and indeed become self employed, but it is not going to be a business, therefore I won't be claiming any grants etc. that would have covered my lost benefits while I set up the business... The factor which makes me suspect this is the case, is that very little attention or support is given to the issues of older people with disabilities forced to seek work perhaps, it isn't as emotive as the plight of young people needing work ? After all a young graduate looks far more appealing than a pensioner ! Job centres used to have age advisers, in the same way as they have disability employment advisers, but this role has been cut . It is a known and too easily accepted fact that employers do not want to employ older people, however, something must be done to change this as people are being forced to work to a later and later age, often in poor health. Meanwhile what activity there is in the field of trying to help older people in this situation is done by providers such as Wise Owls, an organisation set up to assist older people looking for work. On an enterprise course I attended for a while believing I did have a viable business, I remember being told how important it is in these days of limited funding, to ask yourself what is your competition, and who will you be up against. Many people with charitable aims are encouraged rather than starting up on their own, to offer their services to the bigger fish in the sea and join forces with them.
Although I am yet to be paid, in theory I made £15 for the work I had accepted on a bid for jobs site obviously I have to declare this to the DWP. Of the £15, I am only allowed to keep £5, the rest will be deducted from my benefits. If I was getting sickness benefits, I would be allowed to earn considerably more than this as permitted work, which is encouraged b the DWP to encourage sick and disabled people to try paid work...I of course am neither sick or disabled !!!..and as the Job centre lady said I have been found fit for work....Once I declare the blogging activity, even though it has only so far earned £15, which I have not yet got, the DWP, will say I am working, and so have got a job and must give up my benefit. As a self employed person, I can, just as if I was employed claim Working tax credits, ..the princely sum of £52 per week approx, which would have doubled had I been on sickness benefits before making a claim....Because Working tax credit is not considered a means tested benefit in the way that Income based Job seekers allowance is..I will lose the mortgage interest relief..had I been renting however, and on a low income, I would have got my rent paid..OK, the rent for one of my two bedrooms since the conception of the bedroom tax !!!! before anyone suggests I take a lodger, it isn't really a good idea with threadbare carpets, no insurance if a lodger trips and the occasional visit from bailiffs !!!!
The effect of this is that although yes, I may have finally earned some money as a writer, the only way I can afford to give myself this chance is to write around the clock, since all I will be entitled to claim is the minimum rate of working tax credit. ...welcome to the world of the fit and well self employed !!!!
Valerie Hedges
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