Your Obligations When you're Receiving Benefits

The benefits system is there to support you in the bleak times. Getting involved with it, though, does carry significant obligations, and involves a degree of government intrusiveness into your private life which you may find unpalatable.

Obligations When Receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance

If you claim your benefit entitlements because you are unemployed and looking for work, your most basic obligation will be to sign on at the Jobcentre every two weeks. You will also have to demonstrate that you are actively looking for work by keeping a record of what you do to find work and presenting it to the Jobcentre staff whenever asked. This record might include such things as notes you made about how you visited a job search website, sent off an application or received a letter inviting you to an interview.

When you are receiving benefits, you have a duty to report significant changes in your personal circumstances which might affect your eligibility. Most obviously this would normally include starting a new job, starting a training course or doing anything which might mean that you were not available to do 40 hours of work per week.

If, for some reason, you are temporarily unavailable to work at all, you should also let the Benefits Agency know. Circumstances where this might be appropriate would, for example, include : going away from home, even for one day; spending time caring for a sick relative; or even periods of illness you experience yourself. If you go on holiday, you need to tell the Jobcentre. You are allowed two weeks’ holiday within the UK once in a 12-month period while still retaining your benefit, but you must fill out special forms for this. If you go on holiday abroad, your benefit will be terminated, and you will have to make a new claim for it once you return.

Obligations When Receiving Other Benefits

If your financial circumstances change significantly after you have made your application for benefits, you are required to let the agency staff know. For example, if you come into some money because your relative dies and leaves you an inheritance or you win the lottery, for example, you need to indicate that. For most benefits, the levels of savings you have can affect the amount of benefit support you get and can even mean that you won’t get any at all.

For some benefits, for example Tax Credit benefits, it matters whether you are single or in a partnership with someone else. You may even be required to apply for the benefit as a couple. If later there are changes in your personal life, meaning that new relationships form or old ones break up, you will need to keep the government informed as it may affect your eligibility to go on receiving the benefits.

Depending on the benefit you receive, the government may also have to be notified about other changes in your household, for example if your children leave home, start work or begin claiming a benefit for themselves as adults.

Failing to report significant changes to the benefits agency in a timely fashion can mean that you receive more money than you should have done. You may be required to pay it back in future. In some cases, you can even be fined several hundred pounds.

Obligations When Receiving Benefits – Conclusion

Benefits are your entitlements, and are there to help you through difficult times. It’s important to understand, though, that the help you receive does bring some obligations with it.

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