I have been looking at CPAG and Disability Rights Handbook about eligibility for IB ESA and IB JSA . ESA can be claimed if ' they are not entitled to JSA and not a member of a couple entitled to joint claim JSA. There is similar wording for JSA claims, ie to be entitled to JSA, cannot be entitled to ESA or not a member of a couple entitled to ESA.

I thought that 'entitled' means fulfilling the criteria, but that would not make sense. I had understood that if one member of a couple can claim ESA and the other, JSA, they can choose who is the claimant as they could receive different amount of benefit, depending on their circumstances (disability premiums etc)


Thanks

Two bit in the Welfare Reform Act have the rules on this:

s1 contains the condition that to get ESA the claimant must not be entitled to IS or JSA or joint claim JSA

Sched3 para 12 ammends s3 of the JSAct to say that to get ibJSA you musn’t be “a “member of a couple the other member of which is entitled to an income related employment support allowance”

It has to mean entitled including having made a claim
. It has all been built into the same bit of IS and JSA law that make each mutually exclusive and if eligibility for IS and JSA were to be equated with entitlement anyone who is eligible for both would be unable to get either: s124 of the SSCBA would mean they couldn’t get IS and s3 of the JSAct would mean they couldn’t get JSA. It is only by reading entitled as necessitating a claim that it can work. The same thing now extends to ESA and they can choose who is the claimant.

Thanks. I knew that what it must be in practie, it was the terminology that was confusing - as ever