Voluntary redundancy

A question about : Voluntary redundancy

My husband workplace are making redundancies but are also offering voluntary redundancies which he wants to take,but we have heard that you are not entitled to any benefits for 6 months,he would get a nice payout but not that great to last the 6 months as we privatley rent our home,have a 4yr old child, i'm nearly 8 months pregnant (his wife) with no other income coming in, and have loans and cards to pay etc

Does anyone know what benefits we would be entitled to if he was to take voluntary redundancy?

or is he best to hang on and wait to see if he gets made redundant without volunteering.
Thanks

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Best answers:

• He would be better off waiting till he is made redundant. By rights the JSA should write to his employer asking how his reduncy has comeabout. If they write back saying he took voluntary, then his benifit claim would not be approved. Also any insurances on loans, credit cards etc would not be paid out if he took voluntary. The only way to get JSA and debts paid by insurance is for him to be made redundant without taking it voluntary.
• Rules have changed, I believe. Voluntary redundancy is not a bar to receiving JSA.
• Are you sure..?, my mother in law works as a processor for the jsa. She says that as far as she is aware if you take voluntary redundancy your jsa claim would/should not be actioned. However she did say that some people because of the pressure of targets etc, do not send the letter out to the company asking the nature of the redundancy, they just go ahead and process it. She did say though that if it was her she would most definately send the letter out and the claim would be rejected. So it's taking a risk if you do go down that road. Also don't forget about the insurance you get for loans cards etc, if they found out it was voluntary and you told them it wasn't, not only would they stop paying but you'd be commiting fraud.
• I took voluntary redundancy last year and was able to claim contribution based JSA immediately. As many people were being made redundant, a JSA roadshow came to our workplace to advise us. We were told that the rules changed in 2007, and "volunteers" no longer had to delay signing on and claiming benefits. When I signed on, I just produced my redundancy letter from the company, and my claim was accepted - although due to pension complications, missing Natioanal Insurance records, etc, it did take them ages to sort out my money, but eventually it was all sorted. Might be worth taking your P60s for the last 2 or 3 years along, in case you should experience similar problems with missing records.
• How long were you signed off for...?. She has said that when you first make the claim yes you will get JSA but when they make a decision it should be stopped. The time for the stopage does depend on the person who is making the decision on the claim, it could be anything upto six months.
  Did your redundancy letter state that your volunteered for it.?.
• Thanks for all replies and advice,my husband hasn't been made redundant yet but the offer of voluntary is open until next week,he has already applied for jobs within the music industry (currently works in telesales and thinks this could be a chance to do something he has a passion for) which is really hard to get into (even harder now) and this is our only chance to gets debts paid off with redundancy pay,so therefore won't have much left to live on until he gets another job.if he was to stay on at work we would still be struggling each month trying to juggle loans & cards not paying anything off at all and with another baby on the way not really what he wants to do.
  Unfortunatley we cancelled the insurance on cards & loans as the protection payment cost too much.We are going to Citizens advice tomorrow as they said they would be able to right to creditors and hopefully reduce loan & card payments which would be a great help.
  I rang the jobcentre and all they could tell me was it depends on what the reason is for taking voluntary redundancy.He has asked at work could he be first on list to be made redundant as no-one else wants to leave but his boss said it depends on criterias of each person working there so a chance he will have to stay or they could give him another job in the building....arrrggghh
  Does he stay in a job he just "gets on with" but at least it's a job
  or goes for voluntary redundancy with the chance of no debts,time with new baby,and chance to find a job he has a passion for......mmmmmm
  thanks again
• Been to Citizens Advice...
  Effect on claiming benefits
  126
  If a client chooses voluntary redundancy,because s/he has been dismissed s/he will not be treated as having left work voluntary.
  My husband will be leaving work on 28th May but will be paid his 3 months notice 28th Aug, then he can claim his JSA this also applies if he were made redundant same as taking voluntary.
  Thanks everyone
• what about mortgage redundancy cover? will this still pay out?
• We didn't leave the citizens advice until we were deffinatley sure about voluntary redundancy and being able to claim benefits, ..."dismissed then choose voluntary?....we didn't get this either but we got told by head of benefits at the CAB that they are now treated as equal (voluntary & dismissed).
  We contacted jobcentre plus & direct.gov when we knew when my husband was leaving work this was after the visit to CAB and they said the same thing ,wait until your notice is up then he can claim JSA,the only thing jobcentre said differently is they would want to see how redundancy is paid, if it over Ј16,000 we will be unable to claim.
  We contacted Citizens as after numerous calls to jobcentre they couldn't give us any information until my husband leaves work..no help there..we got told about different benefits we were eligible for from different people working at jobcentre ,we were getting really confused as to what we would be entitled to.
  If no-one was to take voluntary redundancy at my husbands workplace then they would have to close part of the company down they were relying on people taking VR to save part of the company and those that wanted to stay.
  My husband now has one deffinate/two possible jobs lined up in music and can hopefully start work in june.Hopefully we won't have to claim benefits at all now if these go well.
• Thanks everyone
• It may be worth him just having a little word in the ear of his employer and saying he would not object to redundancy but cannot volunteer for it.
  That way he may just find that he is one of the chosen ones.
• This recently happened to me. I took voluntary redundancy in April and was paid in leiu of notice until mid june but was able to claim contribution based JSA immediately even though i'd been paid til mid june (bar a 3 day waiting period). I didn't think I would be able too but they said there were no hard and fast rules re: VR and each cased was viewed individually. I've never claimed before so not sure if that had anything to do with it but they had my letter stating it was voluntary together with all info and final payslip showing breakdown of payments. I was surprised but wasn't going to say no!