Advice required on incapacity benefits to esa transitional benefits

ettsam

Hi

Sorry to confuse matters I really dont know whats going on myself


Pre 2001 I was on incapacity benefit
2011 I went onto bereavement benefit
2012 I had a medical did not fill in forms but turned upto appointment at this point I was put in the WRAG group (sorry I know now I should have appealed but at the time I didn't realise it affected my benefits as I was still getting bereavement benefit)
2014 bereavement benefit ended and got income related ESA
2017 Put under fraud investigation as they said I had not told them about my pensions - won this at appeal and did not have to pay back any money. Benefits at this point stopped
April 2018 had medical and was put in support group. In May they gave me £20 then it was upped to £40.23 every two weeks now they have stopped it and said I am not entitled as I do not have enough contributions


Hope this makes more sense

calcotti

I take 2012 as your transfer from IB to ESA.

I think you probably are stuck on an income based ESA claim. If you live alone your basic entitlement is as in my earlier post (#9). If your pension income is more than this you will not be entitled to anything, if it is less you will be entitled to the difference. Assuming you do not have savings over £6000 which would also affect the calculation.

Have you ever considered whether you might qualify for PIP? https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/

ettsam

Do you know if the transitional allowance that I had would still be in place

calcotti

ettsam wrote: »

Do you know if the transitional allowance that I had would still be in place

I think that depends on whether you were initially awarded any income based ESA. I infer that you didn’t in which case my reading of the bit I quoted at post #7 is that the TA will have been lost. Do you still have any records of your original ESA award at transition?

ettsam

I dont think i received anything as i was still on bereavement benefit so have no statements from back then I do have one statement that shows transitional addition but then other ones don't


I did manage to find this but dont know what it means



The reassessment of customers in receipt of incapacity benefits


Customer is entitled to a “transitional addition only”
Exceptionally, there may be customers whose occupational pension (in ESA(C)
cases) and/or income/earnings (in ESA(IR) cases) at the point of conversion, is such
that, applying the normal assessment rules,
they have no entitlement to either
ESA(C) or ESA(IR) , but who
are nevertheless entitled,
in applying the transitional
addition calculation, to a transitional addi
tion of either ESA(C)
or ESA(IR) (or both),
as appropriate.
An award of “transitional addition only”
is a legitimate award of ESA. Where,
therefore, it is in payment on an income-re
lated basis, the customer will be entitled to
the “passported” benefits (e.g. housing benef
it, council tax benefit, free prescriptions
etc) and eligible for budgeting loans and communi
ty care grants from
the social fund,
in the normal way.
Any awards of “transitional addition only” will be subject to
the normal erosion and
termination rules.
See example of calculation.
Customer becomes entitled to a “transitional addition
only”, following a change of circumstances
In addition to the customers who are entitled
to a “transitional addition only” at the
point of conversion, there will be some
customers who, upon conversion, are entitled
both to a standard award of ESA and to a tran
sitional addition, but who, following a
change of circumstances – (most commonly,
an increase in income or partner’s part-
time earnings or, in ESA(C) cases, an incr
ease in occupational pension) – cease to
be entitled to the standard awar
d of ESA itself, but nevertheless remain entitled to a
transitional addition of ei
ther ESA(C) or ESA(IR) (or both), as appropriate.
This is because a change in income/earni
ngs has no impact on the level of any
transitional addition – only on the standard ESA award.

calcotti

I think this simply means that if your original maximum ESA entitlement was less than the IB amount you would have been entitled to a TA. If your circumstances were such that no ESA was payable you would still have been entitled to receive the TA.

What year did you start receiving your pension income?

ettsam

Sorry for all the questions especially on a Friday night but you have been a great help

Would you know how much the transitional allowance would be if esa was not payable wouldthat have then been the £106 that I got for incapacity benefit

calcotti

No. It’s the difference between your ESA allowance and the IB. Think of it as the difference between the IB and the ESA you would have got if you had no other income.

The IB to ESA transfer was before my involvement with benefits so and confess I am struggling to get my head around this!
How much Bereavement Allowance were you getting? Or was it Widowed Parent’s Allowance?
When did your pension income start?

ettsam

I think I got £109 it was a couple of pounds more than IB and it was widows parents allowance
They have agreed my pension is disregarded under contribution based benefits

calcotti

I think the sequence of events is this.
You had IB of £106? In 2011 you went to WPA of £109 so payment of IB stopped. In 2012 your IB was converted to ESA but you were still not paid any ESA because of the WPA. in 2014 the WPA ended but your 365 day entitlement to contribution based ESA had already ended so you received income based ESA. That means that your pension income is taken into account. If it is more than your ESA allowance then you are not entitled to payment.

At transfer from IB your ESA award would have been contribution based (even though you could not be paid anything because of the WPA). There would have been no income based entitlement because of the WPA. Even if a TA was included in the ESA award it would have attached to the contribution based award and would have been lost when your entitlement switched to income based.

I don’t guarantee the above is correct but it’s my best go at interpreting the references alongside what you have said.