Mr. Robert Lynch:

There is an issue with regard to the submission we made on the back to education allowance and people on jobseeker's payments. We have identified an anomaly between where a person finishes on jobseeker's benefit and seeks to claim jobseeker's allowance. The time spent on supplementary welfare allowance is virtually a no man's land where a person cannot apply or qualify for the back to education allowance. At present there is an intervention by the Department with regard to the jobseeker's benefit. A number of weeks in advance of a person exhausting or running out of a jobseeker's benefit claim the Department makes contact to advise him or her the claim is likely to run out and that he or she may be able to qualify for jobseeker's allowance. This would provide the Department with an ideal opportunity to highlight and flag the possibility of the back to education allowance as an option, and for the person to indicate whether it is something in which he or she would be interested.

At that point, the person could indicate whether he or she was interested in it. The Department could engage with the person in overcoming the barrier or no man's land of completing his or her jobseeker's benefit claim and applying for jobseeker's allowance without access to the back to education allowance. If the person was able to flag in advance an interest in pursuing the back to education allowance, the Department would be able to examine his or her claim in a different light and engage with him or her or examine the means testing or qualification criteria sooner. In this way, the person's transition to jobseeker's allowance could be smoother, shorter and easier and would avoid the no man's land of being unable to apply.

The Department has been practical and helpful in terms of developing services, automation and finding easy solutions to problems. This solution has been presented through the contacts with the Department. If followed up on, it could be particularly useful to individuals seeking the back to education allowance.

We would also consider the issue of genuinely seeking work, in that a person's indication of an interest in the back to education allowance would not be seen as a negative in respect of his or her genuinely seeking work. The allowance would be seen as part of the amount and people would not be excluded from a payment simply because they wanted to pursue education in addition to looking for work. Nor would there be a perception that they had chosen education over work.