New Enterprise Allowance - Good or Bad?
Discussion
Has anybody looked into starting their own business via this " flagship " government scheme?
To my eyes having read up on it it seems crazy that you would give up JSA at £73 a week to take 26 weeks of NEA at £48 a week. My understanding is that the allowance doesnt top up your JSA - it replaces it. OK you might not have to suffer the indignity of visiting the job centre every 2 weeks or in some cases daily to sign on but the figures dont lie.
It just makes me laugh that the DWP think you can not only set up and run a business from scratch living off £48 a week after paying out all the bills that you were most likely struggling to pay when you was claiming £73 a week JSA. Unless its something you can run from home then you need transport - so you need a vehicle, road tax, business insurance (at least public liability cover and assuming no employees) money for stock and/or materials, servicing, MOT, vehicle insurance covering business use, fuel, parking fees etc
If a representative from the DWP could come and explain to me how they would make the sums work for them I would be most interested in the maths LOL.
The scheme does apparently consider a business loan of up to £2000 but lets be real here youve got to make the repayments so if your business is not pulling in the money then what do you do? Youd have to shell out from your £48 weekly allowance Are you rolling on the floor laughing yet?
I went self employed donkeys years back and it took me about a year before I was getting 3 or 4 days work per week. All through my self employed years I dont think I can say hand on heart that I ever had a full weeks work in 8 years maybe a handful of weeks - it was always very staggered and random because you had to fit in with peoples home life and plans or demand wasnt there all the time.
Would love to hear of any successes though whether they just funded it themselves from a redundancy package or well off relative loan etc or via the NEA scheme.
But to my mind the NEA scheme just seems to patronise people. I am not sure what happens if the business doesnt fly after 26 weeks either. Can you go back onto JSA for example or can you not reclaim for a period of time leaving you potless?
To my eyes having read up on it it seems crazy that you would give up JSA at £73 a week to take 26 weeks of NEA at £48 a week. My understanding is that the allowance doesnt top up your JSA - it replaces it. OK you might not have to suffer the indignity of visiting the job centre every 2 weeks or in some cases daily to sign on but the figures dont lie.
It just makes me laugh that the DWP think you can not only set up and run a business from scratch living off £48 a week after paying out all the bills that you were most likely struggling to pay when you was claiming £73 a week JSA. Unless its something you can run from home then you need transport - so you need a vehicle, road tax, business insurance (at least public liability cover and assuming no employees) money for stock and/or materials, servicing, MOT, vehicle insurance covering business use, fuel, parking fees etc
If a representative from the DWP could come and explain to me how they would make the sums work for them I would be most interested in the maths LOL.
The scheme does apparently consider a business loan of up to £2000 but lets be real here youve got to make the repayments so if your business is not pulling in the money then what do you do? Youd have to shell out from your £48 weekly allowance Are you rolling on the floor laughing yet?
I went self employed donkeys years back and it took me about a year before I was getting 3 or 4 days work per week. All through my self employed years I dont think I can say hand on heart that I ever had a full weeks work in 8 years maybe a handful of weeks - it was always very staggered and random because you had to fit in with peoples home life and plans or demand wasnt there all the time.
Would love to hear of any successes though whether they just funded it themselves from a redundancy package or well off relative loan etc or via the NEA scheme.
But to my mind the NEA scheme just seems to patronise people. I am not sure what happens if the business doesnt fly after 26 weeks either. Can you go back onto JSA for example or can you not reclaim for a period of time leaving you potless?
I remember the Enterprise Allowance scheme from C83/4. Then, as long as you invested £1k in your business, you got £40pw for 12 months. Iirc it was piloted in areas where large scale redundancies had been made, eg dockyards.
There's no point taking it up with DWP, they don't make the rules. You could ask your MP to take it up with the relevant minister.
There's no point taking it up with DWP, they don't make the rules. You could ask your MP to take it up with the relevant minister.
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