Contribution conditions for C-based ESA

honeybea

Hi
Can someone please advise me if the DWP have made the correct decision? They've turned down a claim for contribution-based ESA due to insufficient contributions. The date of the claim is 10/12/15 and the relevant tax years are 2013/2013 and 2013/2014. Gross annual income as per P60 was £7,700 and £7,600 respectively.
I thought that earnings have to be 50 times the Lower Earning Limit so around £5,500? Not sure if they've made a mistake or not.
Thanks in advance

Darksparkle

http://www.entitledto.co.uk/help/employment-and-support-allowance-contribution-based

You must have made the following level of National Insurance Contributions:

- in one of the previous two tax years, have paid Class 1 or 2 contributions to the value of 26 times the lower earnings limit; and
- in each of the two previous complete tax years, have paid or been credited with, Class 1 or 2 contributions to the value of 50 times the lower earnings limit.

TELLIT01

Unless the rules have been changed recently, it's not simply a case of the value of the contributions, it's the number of contributions made in the qualifying years.
In the early days of ESA it was based simply on the value of the NI contributions but it changed about 4 or 5 years ago.

honeybea

The LEL was £107 in 2012/13 and £109 in 2013/14 so £5,350 and £5,450

Strummer22

If you got a letter saying your contributions were insufficient but you've worked out that they were, the letter is probably in error. This is exactly what happened to my wife. Call them up and ask - thankfully DW had made enough contributions and the letter was wrong. Something about the info not coming back from HMRC fast enough. If it had been me on the phone I'd have given them an earful about scaring their claimants with erroneous rejection letters, but she's a gentle soul averse to confrontation! :A

Caz3121

I don't think it is as simple as looking at gross income. The way NI is paid you may find that depending on what time period that income covers may affect the result. If you earned that income in 1 month you would pay a different amount of national insurance than if you earned the same gross but over 12 months
The test question is specifically around NI contributions and not gross income
What do the P60s say about NI contributions?

TELLIT01

Stu_N_ wrote: »

thankfully DW had made enough contributions and the letter was wrong. Something about the info not coming back from HMRC fast enough. If it had been me on the phone I'd have given them an earful about scaring their claimants with erroneous rejection letters, but she's a gentle soul averse to confrontation! :A

It's not actually a problem with the information not coming back from HMRC. DWP has view access to a system which shows the information held by HMRC. We were forever having problems with HMRC not updating their systems properly.
As an example, we disallowed a claim because the HMRC system showed the claimant receiving Working Tax Credit at a level which was higher than her ESA entitlement (Income Related claim). She was adamant that she was no longer receiving WTC as she had informed HMRC of the change of circumstances. We called the WTC office and they were insistent that she was receiving WTC. Called the customer back to advise her to call HMRC again, she actually laughed and said that between our 2 calls on that day she had actually received a letter from HMRC confirming that WTC had stopped.
If HMRC systems don't even tell their own staff the proper situation what chance do DWP staff have??

Strummer22

TELLIT01 wrote: »

It's not actually a problem with the information not coming back from HMRC. DWP has view access to a system which shows the information held by HMRC. We were forever having problems with HMRC not updating their systems properly.

You have to laugh, otherwise you'd cry...

My wife's claim was already on its way to approval when she called the DWP the day after receiving the rejection letter. It seems like far too great a coincidence for her HMRC records for the tax years 13/14 and 14/15 to update on the day that her ESA rejection letter arrived. In her case I suspect it was a different set of wires that got crossed.

TELLIT01

The main thing is you got the right result in the end. Even when DWP staff have hard evidence e.g. letter from the claimant confirming that WTC has stopped, HMRC won't talk to DWP most of the time. They insist that the information held on their system is correct and DWP staff are simply misinterpreting it!!
How we mistinterpret a screen which shows WTC in payment hadn't been explained by the time I left!