I was in the social welfare office the other day in relation to my husbands BTEA, he was on VTOS last yr and depending on whether he got a college place in college he was going to apply for BTEA, he got word that he got a place so went to social welfare to apply to BTEA but was told he wasnt entitled to it unless he was coming from JB or JA or other qualifying social welfare benefits, I looked up the website and it said different it gave a list of schemes including VTOS and then said
"You may go directly from one of the above schemes to Back to Education Allowance provided you were getting one of the qualifying social welfare payments listed above immediately before or after you started the scheme. If there is a break of more than 4 weeks between leaving the Scheme and starting an approved course of study you must establish an entitlement to a qualifying social welfare payment to qualify for BTEA."
If the above is the case he is well entitled to it.
I brought this to the social welfare office and the very nice man behind the desk made a few phonecalls for me, and apparently its a grey area! even though it lists the changes under budget 2013 on the website, the lady that he was speaking to in the BTEA section said that its a grey area there were meant to be changes to this but yet they are not on the website,so I dont think SW know themselves whats meant to be the situation, my husband was told to submit his BTEA and he should know within two weeks! I think this is dreadful telling people on the website one thing and then when they go to apply telling them another, I know a good few people that may get caught out with this.
"You may go directly from one of the above schemes to Back to Education Allowance provided you were getting one of the qualifying social welfare payments listed above immediately before or after you started the scheme. If there is a break of more than 4 weeks between leaving the Scheme and starting an approved course of study you must establish an entitlement to a qualifying social welfare payment to qualify for BTEA."
If the above is the case he is well entitled to it.
I brought this to the social welfare office and the very nice man behind the desk made a few phonecalls for me, and apparently its a grey area! even though it lists the changes under budget 2013 on the website, the lady that he was speaking to in the BTEA section said that its a grey area there were meant to be changes to this but yet they are not on the website,so I dont think SW know themselves whats meant to be the situation, my husband was told to submit his BTEA and he should know within two weeks! I think this is dreadful telling people on the website one thing and then when they go to apply telling them another, I know a good few people that may get caught out with this.