Btea question..

Strstu

Hi all,
So I was on btea last year and unfortunately due to illness I wasn't able to successfully complete the year, I've squared it all away with btea head office and the college in terms of meeting the terms for a repeat year.

Unfortunately it's my local sw office that's giving me problems, basically I rang last week to make sure there were no problems told all good just needed to go in and sign on. Got my letter confirming dates went in today was told my claim was closed and to go down and make an appointment to reopen it, so went down made the appointment was given Jobseekers repeat claim forms so double check and explained that I'd only be unemployed for one week before college starts as I was working over summer they said they were the right ones so slightly lost here... anyone ever have a similar experience with sw??

Gin plus shock blanket

Hello,

This didn't happen to be in the Hanover Street offices in Cork did it? I am about to go in to second year of a three year degree and was on BTEA last year. I was signed off BTEA for the summer and put on part time allowance as I work on a casual basis for an agency. I submitted no dockets for the last week of July and first week of August as I was able to get 4- 5 days work with the agency each week as people were on holidays etc so it was temporary. I submitted a docket last week and had yet to receive payment for it and I had not gotten any dockets for the month ahead so I went to Hanover st today to see what was wrong.
Went to the casuals desk and was told that as they hadn't heard from me in two weeks they closed my claim ( with no contact with me as you do) and that I had been referred back to the special schemes. Went to special schemes and was told that "it was no big deal" and that my claim would have to be reopened. Queued up at fresh claims only to be given all the paper work to fill out from scratch again and have to be interviewed by a deciding officer next Thursday! One of the questions on the form is about am i looking for full time work which I'm not at this point as I start back to college on the 8th Sept. I pointed this out to the guy in fresh claims who told me to say I am looking and as he had never worked in Special Schemes did not know if my BTEA for next year would be affected or not. I have e mailed their head office in Sligo to see what is going on but I'm terrified.

Strstu

Nope not Cork, yeah I got the same "are you looking for work" question on my form and left it blank till I speak with them tomorrow at my appointment.

It's pretty annoying especially since I have a letter from mid-july saying I was provisional accepted for btea and they just ignored it.