jt --- Good advice but a word of caution here because there are two types of JSA the one that is means-tested is the income based JSA this is paid in place of Income support or in part addition to claimants who have not paid enough NI contributions to get the otherwise different non-means tested contribution based JSA.

If anyone is claiming the former IB JSA then savings, winnings or income from any other source over the allowances, will affect or stop entitlement altogether and do need declaring.

Also when someone claims a normal non-means tested benefit in a lot of cases they think they are safe with the amount of savings they hold.....normally they are....but a lot of times they need to claim further top ups like housing benefit(HB), income support(IS) or council tax benefit(CTB)....these are means-tested and are affected by income and savings and sometimes are innocently overlooked by claimants, so income or savings or any hours of work voluntary or not, definitely need checking against the allowed limits when making claims.

Hi,

I was asked the other day a question relating to JSA/Unemplyment benefits, And thought i would share this answer just in case anyone was wondering,

I was asked that if someone is playing the lottery online etc or have won some money or if they are selling stuff on websites like Ebay etc. Do they have t declare this when they sign there declration.

Well lets start of yes the money is given to you so you can live and is given for basic esentials however what you do with that money is totally up to you. So if you spend this on Gambling ETC that is your choice the DWP cannot take this off you because you dont spend your money right.

The money that is provided to you is unemploment benefit, And is paid to you because you are not working. You are signing a declaration to say that you have not worked. You are not signing the declaration to say that you have won some money.

Regardless of how much money you have, If your not working you are still entitled to claim the benefit it is a equal right you will not be deducted money just because you have made 40-100 pound in a week selling your used cds or dvdson a selling site. As you are just selling your items. This as nothing at all to do with the jobcentre or DWP.

The jobcentre only ask have you worked or done any volunatary work in the last week? If you had worked for a week then you would have to declare this, And they may or may not deduct any money depends how much was earnt and how many Hours where worked, Volenteer work is are only declared so they can put this on your file to say that yes you have done Volunteer work and helps your claim stay Active as they can see you are genuine and looking for work. But please dont lie about this as they will check with the company if you have worked volunteraly.