CAB Support available for struggling families
I was wondering if the news that Uber lost its employment case at the Supreme Court will have any impact on me. The company I work for provides jobs through an app on my phone, but I have always understood that I was self-employed, and my contract says that if I was to try to take employment tribunal action I would have to pay the company’s costs, even if I won. I have been making so little the past year, it has been barely worth my while working, despite the hours I have been doing.
As this is a complicated area, you need advice that looks into your reliance on this company to provide you with work, and the level of control they have over the work you do.
If your work has to be done in person, without you being able to send someone else in your place, you may be able to rely on this ruling to get the same rights as other workers, including national minimum wage and paid holidays.
It might even be that people who consider themselves self-employed would still benefit from being recognised as workers for some of the work they do.
There are likely to be groups of people taking similar cases to tribunal who can expect back pay and, if you work for one of the larger companies, you should look to see if other colleagues are taking action.
What does seem certain now is that clauses like the one in your contract, which prevent a worker from taking a case to tribunal, are not lawful.
After my partner and I split up, and due to lack of childcare options, I have had to give up work, hopefully, just in the short term, to look after my five year old. I am now getting Universal Credit and help with council tax reduction on top of my child benefit payment. It is a bit of a struggle at the moment and I wondered if there is any other help I might get?
As you have a five-year-old child, it seems very likely they were born between March 1, 2015 and February 29, 2016.
If that’s right, you must immediately look to claim the Best Start School Age Payment of £250, as you only have until the end of this month to do so.
You need to be on Universal Credit or one of the other income related benefits, like tax credits or housing benefit, to get this one-off payment, and can apply online at mygov. scot or by phoning Social Security Scotland on 0800 182 2222.
Applications are also now open for the Scottish Child Payment. This amounts to an additional £10 per week for eligible parents and is paid for every child in that household under six years old.
There is no two child limit, unlike with Universal Credit. You can apply the same ways as for the School Age Payment and, again, should do this as soon as possible, because awards won’t be backdated before the date you first apply for the benefit.
I’ve had a letter saying that my Post Office account is closing. This has always been how I have been paid my state pension. What can I do?
You will be one of the many thousands of people who have received this letter from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
Last year, there were still nearly 900,000 people in the UK using these Post Office card accounts, so there is a big job to change how people are paid state benefits before the contract the DWP has with the Post Office ends in November.
You do still have a bit of time to move your payments to a different bank account or open a new one, and the DWP has a helpline you can use to provide new details on 0800 085 7133.
The DWP insists that no-one will suffer an interruption with their payments after providing new details, and that there is a “payment exception service” available for people who can’t open a new account.