Universal Credit LCWRA and ESA Support Group

jedthehumanoid

Hello. My partner had a capability for work assessment recently and has received a letter from Universal Credit saying she has been deemed as having 'Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity'. As such she is not expected to look for work, doesn't need to provide sick notes etc.

Her UC claim is running alongside a New Style ESA claim. Because of my earnings she's never actually had any payments from UC, only her ESA payments. Today she did not get her ESA payment and when we queried it we were told that it was because she had not sent a sick note to cover the last month. We explained the situation with her capability for work assessment result and the letter she received but apparently this does not show on the Jobcentre system? As far as they are concerned her assessment outcome is still pending. They asked us to get in touch with UC to ask them to send their paperwork over to the Jobcentre as "they're not very good at sending us (Jobcentre) things". In the meantime they recommended she gets a sick note from her doctor.

Has anyone experienced this or similar? It seems stupid that the result of her assessment is known but she still has to get sick notes, something that was specifically noted on her letter as not being required. Also, does anyone know if she will automatically be placed in the Support Group for ESA if she is in the LCWRA group for UC? Thanks in advance.

calcotti

The outcome of the WCA should be applied to he ESA claim too so she will be in the ESA Support Group. Depending on the timing of the claims the additional payments included in the awards may start at different times. The ESA will of course be deducted from the UC.
As regards sick notes if you can easily get one you could send it to ESA (it will need to be continuous from the last one). If not, do as they suggest and prompt UC to inform ESA of the WCA outcome. Not very joined up is it!

tomtom256

She needs to send a journal message as the UC decision should be used on the ESA claim, but the two claims may not be linked as a dual claim, if the UC has been a nil award throughout.

jedthehumanoid

Thanks for your reply. I can't see how 2 arms of the same department haven't got the same information, crazy how their systems aren't linked. 

We've asked UC to send over all the information from her assessment result over to the Jobcentre using the journal section of the UC account, so we'll see what happens. We've also been in touch with her doctor who should be sorting a sick note today.

It's good that she should be placed in the Support Group though, she was stressing a bit that they might come to a different conclusion than UC.

calcotti

Although the maximum UC entitlement will go up with LCWRA the ESA payments will also go up (albeit by not as much). Are you actually expecting her to get any UC payments or will your earnings still nil the award?

jedthehumanoid

We're not expecting her to get any UC payments so it'll remain as a nil award I think. We were advised to claim both UC and ESA when she started her claim last year as we might have received some help with housing costs, but we've since had a letter saying we don't qualify.

poppy12345

Have you taken into consideration the extra LCWRA element and the work allowance, which will be £292 per month that you can earn before the 63% deductions apply.

jedthehumanoid

I've put everything through the calculator on entitledto and it looks like she'll just get her ESA. I work full-time so I wouldn't expect to receive anything beyond the minimum. I don't earn a fortune but enough for all of the deductions to apply.

Spoonie_Turtle

ESA can apparently access the UC system to check the outcome themselves - when I phoned them to explain I didn't need a fit note (was awarded LCWRA on UC before I even claimed ESA) they said they looked on the system while I was on the phone and confirmed it there and then.  [But now I think about it, I'm not getting the SG payment despite it being several months now so someone's dropped the ball somewhere.]

poppy12345

Spoonie_Turtle said:

 [But now I think about it, I'm not getting the SG payment despite it being several months now so someone's dropped the ball somewhere.]

NsESA Support Group should be £113.55 per week.

jedthehumanoid

After reading some of the threads here it sounds like "Someone's dropped the ball" should be the DWP motto. I'll give UC a call later just to follow up on my journal message from this morning and to see if they'll send all the info over while I'm on the phone.