ESA error arrears and DRO

Three7six

Hi, I'm currently slap in the middle of my DRO 12 month period and this morning received a bulky letter and form from the DWP regarding a 9 month claim to ESA in 2012/13 stating that there could have been an error in me being paid cont based only. From what I can gather, this is something quite a few people have been affected by. I was in receipt of DLA at that point, and no one received Carers Allowance for me, so I think I could be entitled. I believe it's called a disability premium. If I apply for it, does anyone know if that will then cause my DRO to be revoked? From what I can work out, I think it would be around £2500 that I'd be owed. I've googled it, but answers with regards to benefit errors seem complicated.

fatbelly

This is from the DRO Team's official guidance:

Back payments of ESA should be assessed in the same way as any other asset devolving upon the debtor, despite any error made by the DWP, however, if the award includes amounts for disability premiums these will be disregarded.

This includes applying our current asset assessment protocol (after disregarding any disability component of any backdated payment). Each payment should be assessed on a case by case basis.

Payments should not be ignored because they were not requested, or because they may have arisen as a result of administrative errors.