Carer Element/Premium added to ESA

kkkklinky

My partner claims IRESA(I'm added to claim), I was recently awarded Carers Allowance for him from 20 May although I won't receive first payment until 17 June to ensure I don't have an overpayment due to ESA being deducted from the CA(I requested weekly payments).
How long does it take for the premium to be added to ESA and is is done automatically as I was paid last week but no premium was added or will it be after 17 June. Thanks.

huckster

Suggest you contact ESA, as is may not be an automated process, simply because you claim Carers Allowance.

xxxxxxxx

CA office is witholding payment of CA arrears, because CA office has asked ESA office to calculate how much arrears you are entitled to have.

Within the calculation done by ESA office will be the Carer Premium backdated to 20th May, the ESA office will also add the Carer Premium to be paid on ESA going forward.

Theoretically you do not need to do anything.  If CA does not get a response by 17th June they will ask ESA again.

Normally the ESA award will go down from now on and there will be £36.30/w of CA paid for the arrears period.

If you phone CA on 17th June and they tell you they have had no response from ESA,  then you could phone ESA to ask them to return the calculation to CA office.

kkkklinky

Thanks.

The letter stated that I "MAY" be entitled to some backdated money if I get ESA, I assume that is the arrears you may be referring too( although I'm not bothered about that). I was advised I would receive a full award letter on or after the 17 June, so I assume they would of contacted ESA by then. 
Would the backdated Premium be added to my next ESA payment after ESA has calculated.

I'm just wanting this transition to go smoothly as I was reluctant to claim CA until I was advised I would be slightly better off due to Premiums. 

xxxxxxxx

It says 'may' because in some circumstances there are no arrears payable, but in your circumstance, I see no reason why arrears will not be paid.

When ESA does the calculation, the Carer Premium will be added to ESA for the next ESA payment.

You will know it has been done, when you see the ESA payment has gone down by £36/w (~£70 over 2 weeks).
Or CA pays you an unexpected amount.

You can ask ESA if they received the CA request for calculation and if it has been returned to CA
or you can ask CA if they have received it back from ESA yet.

kkkklinky

Thanks for your advice.
I'm going to wait for my first CA payment on the 17th and see what the full award letter says. I get ESA 2 days later so will see if their has been any changes..if not I will contact them.

kkkklinky

I did receive my first weekly CA today...no backdated money though(not entirely sure if I'm entitled to any). Going to get my partner to contact ESA to make sure they are aware of CA being paid. Overall it was a relatively fast process being paid within 5 weeks. Thanks for the helpful advice.

kkkklinky

It turns out ESA have not done the calculation, so it appears I have an overpayment. I can see my payments the day before and I am recieving the same amount of ESA before I started claiming CA(around £400+). I assumed I would only receive CA when the calculation was done(obviously incorrect on my part). I tried contacting ESA but got cut off after waiting an hour 3 times and the office eventually closed. I am now stressed out as I'm likely going to be owing money to ESA, one of the reasons I was reluctant to claim CA in the first place.

poppy12345

There may not be an overpayment for you to pay back. I know there wasn't when I claimed Carers allowance some years ago and I also claim Income Related ESA. 

If they've awarded from 20th May and all you've received is 1 weekly payment then they owe you some money.

Part of the money that I was owed from CA was taken to pay back the money that was owed from ESA, which meant I didn't have to pay ESA anything else. This was advised in a previous comment above. 

When claiming CA and Income Related ESA the CA is deducted in full, ESA then add the carers premium. The amount deducted from your ESA per week will be £36.30 (£72.60/fortnightly) 

Danien

So think of it this way, from the start of your carer's allowance claim esa has paid your carer's allowance. Now you will be receiving direct carer's allowance payments and esa will subtract that amount from your esa payments, but will then add on a carer premium of £45.60 a week for every week you are entitled to carer's allowance, and will backdate it to the beginning of your carer's allowance claim, which you should receive soon. So in effect you end up £45.60 a week better off.

kkkklinky

CA have confirmed ESA Has returned the calculations and CA are currently processing my backdated payment. So ESA are aware of my claim. Panic over. I should have my premiums in my next ESA payment in 2 weeks.