Present WRAG ESA

jasonbudd1984

Hi

I know that the ESA rate for WRAG is to change from April 2017.

I believe the reduced rate does not affect those in the ESA WRAG at this same point, but will it do so in the future? I am just trying to work out my finances going into the future mid term and I can't seem to find this information about anywhere!

jb

poppy12345

At the moment it's only for new clamaints after April 2017. Haven't heard of anything else.

TELLIT01

It's not possible to know what will happen with any benefit in the future but as poppy12345 says, as present this will only affect new claimants. Under the present rules, the only way the change would affect the OP is if they closed their ESA claim and then made a new claim which started from more than 12 weeks later. As that new claim wouldn't link to the old one, new rules would then apply.

jasonbudd1984

Ok. That should be good news but it feels like an awkward limbo!

Are those in the ESA WRAG group going to end up in Universal Credit? Does the benefit rate changes have any impact on this transition?

It is all so confusing...

TELLIT01

Those on Income Related ESA will probably be moved to UC eventually. When people were moved from Incapacity Benefit to ESA there was a system called Transitional Protection which ensured that they weren't worse off after the move. Basically they continued to get the amount they received from IB if it was higher, but then wouldn't get any increases until the ESA amount reached the same level.

I agree it can be confusing, but there is nothing to be gained by trying to guess what might happen in the future.

KxMx

There was an exception to transitional protection under IB to ESA, so there is form for no 100% guarantees.

(IB to ESA WRAG was time limited for 365 days. This meant after that time if you were eligible for IR ESA, transitional protection was lost and money dropped).

For ESA to UC it's not worth worrying about now though until details are known.

TELLIT01

There was no time limit on IB to ESA WRAG initially. The time limit on ESA Conts based WRAG was introduced much later. I honestly can't remember if the time limit was retrospectively applied when it was introduced.
What it does show is that there is no certainty that rules in effect on a particular date will always apply going forward.