This is a guest post from BR.
“Hello
I am a welfare & debt advisor. This info is
to help those people on the Work Programme.
If you are on JSA or ESA [WRAG] then these
rules below apply
Below are the regs for Employment Related
Courses for anyone on the Work Programme. No WP Participant is allowed by the
regulations to do more than one course in a year. I believe that most WP
Providers are making claimants do more than one which are in breach of the
regulations. There are no exceptions to these regulations once you have done one
course [ a CV course for example] you CANNOT do anymore.
Hope this helps.
Kind Regards
Bryan
Employment related course
94. Claimants who are
participating as a full time student in an employment related course can be
treated as available and ASE for a maximum of up to 2 weeks and one such course
in any period of 12 months. e.g. if claimant attends a course lasting 3 days,
they do not have another 11 days banked to use within the 12 months. They can
attend one course, up to two weeks within the 12 month period.
95. A week in this case is a period of 7 consecutive days starting on the first day of the course. Attendance on the course must be agreed with an adviser before they start the course.
96. Jobcentre Plus employment or training programmes are not employment related courses.
97. If a claimant wishes to participate full-time in a longer employment-related course, eg 4 weeks, they can only be treated as available and ASE for the first 2 weeks. For the remainder of the course they will be a full-time student and therefore cannot be treated as available for work.
98. An employment related course is a course which will help a claimant acquire or enhance the skills needed for:
· employment; and/or
· seeking employment; and/or
· a particular occupation, for example:
o deep-sea diving course;
o large goods vehicle driving course; or
o a period of trial before employment begins.
99. For a course to be accepted as ‘employment related’ it is not necessary for it to be the type of work that is recorded on the claimant’s JSAg but it must improve their chances of getting a job. A CV writing course would be regarded as employment related if it improved the claimant’s employability.”
