Question answered

Hoot_Owl

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calcotti

Hoot_Owl said: I wanted to ask if the worst was to happen with the job and I needed to claim Universal credit within a few weeks/months of cancelling my ESA would I need to go back to sending sick notes again and on the assessment rate while waiting for a new work capability assessment? 

Unfortunately in general yes you would.

I think the only possible exception would be if you were claiming within 12 weeks of your existing claim ending you would be able to claim new style ESA and although you would fail the NI test so could not be paid I think you would be awarded NI credits on the grounds of LCWRA. If you then claimed UC you would be entitled to the LCWRA element from the start of the UC claim.

Good luck with the job.

calcotti

Hoot_Owl said:Yeah unfortunately I was only ever on income related ESA so looks like I’d be starting from scratch if I needed to reclaim UC.

It doesn’t matter if the ESA was contribution based or income based (I may have been editing that part of my post as you posted).

Hoot_Owl said: It’s a shame i didn’t voluntarily move over to UC the past few years because then I may I’ve been able to put rapid reclaim in….oh well I’ve got some serious decisions to make!

There are no 12 week linking rules for UC so nothing is lost in that respect.

Are you claiming any other benefits?

I would suggest it is better to cancel the ESA on Monday rather than tomorrow. DWP may refuse to accept notification of changes before they occur (in case they don’t).

calcotti

There are no permitted work limits on UC.

You could apply for UC tomorrow. Because you are applying for UC while your ESA claim is live your status as LCWRA should be recognised without a new assessment. Your UC entitlement would therefore include the standard allowance and the LCWRA element giving you a maximum UC amount of £668.47/month. Because you have LCWRA and are not claiming help with rent the first £557 of your earnings will be ignored, above this there will be a deduction of 55%. This means that there will still be UC entitlement unless you earn more than £1772/month (net of NI, income tax and any pension contributions) which seems unlikely if you are working 25 hours/week.

You would therefore have your wages plus some UC. If you decide not to take the job, or have to give it up, you will be on UC and will receive slightly more than you currently do on ESA.

Spoonie_Turtle

calcotti said:

You could apply for UC tomorrow. Because you are applying for UC while your ESA claim is live your status as LCWRA should be recognised. Your UC entitlement would therefore include the standard allowance and the LCWRA element giving you a maximum UC amount of £668.47/month. Because you have LCWRA the first £557 of your earnings will be ignored, above this there will be a deduction of 55%. This means that there will still be UC entitlement unless you earn more than £1772/month (net of NI, income tax and any pension contributions) which seems unlikely if you are working 25 hours/week.

And even if not, your claim would stay open for six months even if you have nil entitlement.  If you found the job too much, you would have the UC to fall back on with LCWRA entitlement already and thus not needing another WCA (unless your work contradicts the reasons you've been awarded LCWRA).

calcotti

Spoonie_Turtle said:.. (unless your work contradicts the reasons you've been awarded LCWRA).

Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully given the backlogs at the moment it might take UC some time to consider that by which time OP will have had the opportunity to test their capacity for work.

calcotti

If you submit a claim for UC tomorrow that will the start date of your claim. It will also mean that a stop notice is issued to end your ESA claim in two weeks time. If you do start work on Monday you should still tell ESA (but should probably also mentioned that you have applied for UC).

Obviously if you claim UC tomorrow you will be not be reporting any work. Next week, if you start work, you can log onto your journal and report a change of circumstances with respect to employment.

calcotti

Be aware that as part of the UC claim process you will need to attend the JobCentre at some point to agree a Claimant Commitment (which as you have LCWRA should be little more than an agreement to keep them informed of any changes). If work comes up in conversation make clear it is a trial period

Hoot_Owl

calcotti said:

Be aware that as part of the UC claim process you will need to attend the JobCentre at some point to agree a Claimant Commitment (which as you have LCWRA should be little more than an agreement to keep them informed of any changes). If work comes up in conversation make clear it is a trial period

Will do, thank you.

Hoot_Owl

calcotti said:

Obviously if you claim UC tomorrow you will be not be reporting any work. Next week, if you start work, you can log onto your journal and report a change of circumstances with respect to employment.

Hi again calcotti, I’m in the middle of making a universal credit claim, one of the questions it’s asking me is ‘are starting Employment in the next month?’ Obviously I will be if I’m planning on starting work Monday, is this a problem? 

calcotti

To be honest I didn’t realise that they asked that. I think all you can do is answer honestly.