Old ESA Claim and current issues

Ames

If you take a lot longer than a healthy person to do things then for PIP purposes you are unable to do that activity at all.

It sounds like you need advice from somewhere like CAB to apply for PIP, it's not as simple as 'can you do x, yes or no?'.

Alice_Holt

Ames wrote: »

If you take a lot longer than a healthy person to do things then for PIP purposes you are unable to do that activity at all.

It sounds like you need advice from somewhere like CAB to apply for PIP, it's not as simple as 'can you do x, yes or no?'.

Ames is spot on.

I would suggest the OP looks into PIP in more detail before rejecting it.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/725533/pip-assessment-guide-part-2-assessment-criteria.pdf

"Central to the application of all the activities within the PIP
assessment is a consideration of the manner in which they are
undertaken. For a descriptor to be able to apply to a claimant, the
claimant must be able to reliably complete the activity as described
in the descriptor.
2.2.2 Considering reliability involves looking at whether the claimant can
complete the activity as described:
• Safely – in a manner unlikely to cause harm to themselves or to
another person, either during or after completion of the activity
• To an acceptable standard
• Repeatedly – able to repeat the activity as often as is reasonably
required
• In a reasonable time period – no more than twice as long as the
maximum period that a non-disabled person would normally take
to complete that activity.
2.2.3 This applies to every activity within the assessment......"

Tomsdottir

wdj40 wrote: »

All I want to find out is if I was on the wrong one at the time too, as I had worked up until I had to claim. But due to back issues I was put onto ESA, then JSA, then ESA etc etc and I cant remember if Incapacity Benefit at any point before that.

The Job Centre at the time basically inflicted pain on me, knowing I had issues but not supplying any type of decent chair week after week. Sending me to apply for jobs knowing full well I could not do them.

It is confusing, I think.
There are two forms of ESA: income related ESA and contributory ESA. People may qualify for only one form or for both. Contributory ESA is based on your national insurance record. The contributory ESA you received reflects that fact that you worked and paid national insurance contributions. It is not affected by your savings, your partner's work or your own income from other sources (with an exception for occupational pensions and councillor's allowances: these do affect your ESA if they are high enough). It is only paid at a single person rate.

Income related ESA, on the other hand, is means tested. Any savings you have, any income you or your partner have and your partner's hours of work, all affect whether you can get any income related ESA. So for example, if your partner works for 24 hours or more a week, you are not entitled to income related ESA. This type of ESA can be paid at a couple rate as well as for a single claimant. So someone who is too ill to work but hasn't paid NI contributions, might qualify for income related ESA only.

What about getting both? Say you are a member of a couple and you have paid enough contributions to get contributory ESA, but that's your only income, and you have no (or low) savings. That money won't be enough for both of you. So your contributory ESA can be "topped up" with income related ESA, to bring you up to a couple rate. You are getting both types of ESA at the same time.

This may have been what happened to you:

You were originally on incapacity benefit.

At some point after ESA was introduced back in 2008, your incapacity benefit award was converted into a claim for contributory ESA. If your wife was working for 24 hours a week, or if your income or savings were too high, you would not have qualified for a top-up of income related ESA (This is the key area where the DWP got the conversion process wrong and are now having to correct awards: they did not properly investigate whether people should have had a "top up" of income related ESA. In the cases which led to the court case, the DWP were failing to include "disability premiums" - extra amounts of income related ESA which people should have got because they were getting DLA.)

As part of the conversion process, you were asked to attend a work capability assessment. The DWP decided that you didn't pass the test, and you didn't appeal.

If you asked for a mandatory reconsideration after you failed the WCA (you have to do this before appealing) you may have claimed JSA whilst that was happening. (Your ESA is not paid whilst you wait for the MR to be carried out.)

I hope this helps to clarify things a bit.

wdj40

Tomsdottir wrote: »

It is confusing, I think.
There are two forms of ESA: income related ESA and contributory ESA. People may qualify for only one form or for both. Contributory ESA is based on your national insurance record. The contributory ESA you received reflects that fact that you worked and paid national insurance contributions. It is not affected by your savings, your partner's work or your own income from other sources (with an exception for occupational pensions and councillor's allowances: these do affect your ESA if they are high enough). It is only paid at a single person rate.

Income related ESA, on the other hand, is means tested. Any savings you have, any income you or your partner have and your partner's hours of work, all affect whether you can get any income related ESA. So for example, if your partner works for 24 hours or more a week, you are not entitled to income related ESA. This type of ESA can be paid at a couple rate as well as for a single claimant. So someone who is too ill to work but hasn't paid NI contributions, might qualify for income related ESA only.

What about getting both? Say you are a member of a couple and you have paid enough contributions to get contributory ESA, but that's your only income, and you have no (or low) savings. That money won't be enough for both of you. So your contributory ESA can be "topped up" with income related ESA, to bring you up to a couple rate. You are getting both types of ESA at the same time.

This may have been what happened to you:

You were originally on incapacity benefit.

At some point after ESA was introduced back in 2008, your incapacity benefit award was converted into a claim for contributory ESA. If your wife was working for 24 hours a week, or if your income or savings were too high, you would not have qualified for a top-up of income related ESA (This is the key area where the DWP got the conversion process wrong and are now having to correct awards: they did not properly investigate whether people should have had a "top up" of income related ESA. In the cases which led to the court case, the DWP were failing to include "disability premiums" - extra amounts of income related ESA which people should have got because they were getting DLA.)

As part of the conversion process, you were asked to attend a work capability assessment. The DWP decided that you didn't pass the test, and you didn't appeal.

If you asked for a mandatory reconsideration after you failed the WCA (you have to do this before appealing) you may have claimed JSA whilst that was happening. (Your ESA is not paid whilst you wait for the MR to be carried out.)

I hope this helps to clarify things a bit.

Ah ha now this sounds about right, I was put onto JSA from ESA when I failed the WCA. But as I couldnt do any of the jobs they were telling me to go for (manual labour and all sorts) I was then not entitled to anything. So I only ended up getting £20 from JSA and that was the end of that. My mandatory referral for ESA then failed and I did not know there were any other options.

It just seemed that no matter what specialist reports I had, including Spinal Specialists and and MRI scans etc, no-one at the DWP or Job Centre cared.

Thank you for all the information

Yes my Wife was working more than 24hrs a week... 25 at the time annoyingly enough. She works 30 now but with living costs and rent rising year on year its no longer enough.

wdj40

Alice_Holt wrote: »

Ames is spot on.

I would suggest the OP looks into PIP in more detail before rejecting it.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/725533/pip-assessment-guide-part-2-assessment-criteria.pdf

"Central to the application of all the activities within the PIP
assessment is a consideration of the manner in which they are
undertaken. For a descriptor to be able to apply to a claimant, the
claimant must be able to reliably complete the activity as described
in the descriptor.
2.2.2 Considering reliability involves looking at whether the claimant can
complete the activity as described:
• Safely – in a manner unlikely to cause harm to themselves or to
another person, either during or after completion of the activity
• To an acceptable standard
• Repeatedly – able to repeat the activity as often as is reasonably
required
• In a reasonable time period – no more than twice as long as the
maximum period that a non-disabled person would normally take
to complete that activity.
2.2.3 This applies to every activity within the assessment......"

Oh I did not realise this, when I glanced at it earlier it sounded like it was for people who needed others to do things for them.

I will look into this tomorrow morning and I am awaiting a call from CAB at some point, hopefully tomorrow.

Thank you Also thank you Ames for the reply

TELLIT01

wdj40 wrote: »

Yes thanks for that, just for the record I have applied for 100's of jobs and to this day I am still trying. I was even turned down a job at the job centre itself.

I worked since I was 16 and still at school and have had 2 jobs at once a couple of times in the past. 18yrs I was in work before this happened and then I was treated awfully by system.

So I am looking for work and for advice at the same time as well as complaining about the system (in fact I feel I am not complaining I am explaining my past a little). All the specialists advised not really to do much but I need to do something, I was a house husband for a while and did the school runs etc so at least I got to do that for a while.

I will carry on looking for work and maybe one day can find something, or it will get worse and at least I can have the operation that could cure, do nothing, kill or paralyse me.

I just saw the recent info about claimants back in 2014 and since that was the exact time I was claiming, just thought I'd see what was happening and if anyone had a similar background to mine.

I think I gave some wrong info earlier. It was the mandatory referral that was shrugged off at the time, I had no idea I could have taken it to a Court of Appeal at the time.

Apologies. I shouldn't have included the bit about looking for work as I don't know what you have been attempting.

wdj40

TELLIT01 wrote: »

Apologies. I shouldn't have included the bit about looking for work as I don't know what you have been attempting.

No worries... the best job that suited me that i have gone for I really hope they come back to me at some point.

It was role play exercises helping the military with training exercises. I was told by the recruitment person that a damaged neck would be fine as I would just be a civilian etc.

But I keep harrassing them every month to see if I can get a spot in a recruitment day.