Carer’s Premium and JSA

Hello

We have a couple who have been receiving joint IB JSA. PIP has now been awarded for her. He is her carer but has been receiving JSA with a full time job seeking agreement. Does anyone have any experience of applying for backdated carer’s premium in these circumstances?
Thanks

Claire

Hi Claire,

There should be no problem with this.  Carer’s Allowance should check what benefits he has already been paid, then adjust the amount of arrears they pay him.  JSA won’t retrospectively decide that he wasn’t a “real” jobseeker if that’s what you are thinking.

Is he planning to change from JSA to Income Support?  If he does this at the same time as claiming Carer’s Allowance, then the Carers Allowance Unit has to liaise with two other departments and I have had cases where they have missed payments as a result.

If he is ok with his JSA claim it might be simplest to wait until the CA is in payment before doing the switch from JSA to Income Support.