Switch from ESA to UC?

walking_footy_wizard

My son has mental health issues and currently receives ESA (in a Support Group) and Universal Credit shared with his girlfriend with whom he has a baby daughter.He currently works up to 16 hours a week as permitted by ESA rules. His health and ability to work can be very variable but he would like to try to work longer hours and see how he gets on. To enable him to do this what is the process of moving from ESA to Universal Credit only and are there any disadvantages. Under UC he is categorised as limited capacity to work. He is just looking for flexibility to work longer hours when he is able and protection for his family when he is not in good health.

poppy12345

To be clear, permitted work rules are less than 16 hours/week, rather than up to 16 hours. He will need to cancel his ESA claim if he wants to increase his hours. For this he will need to ring them. 

The deduction in his UC for ESA will then stop, although I don't know how easy it would be to get that to stop but others may know. 

Rubyroobs

It's odd rules because on ESA he is limited by the permitted work rules but if he were just claiming the LCWRA element on UC instead of ESA as well he would have no limit on how many hours he could work. Hopefully someone will come along and explain why there are two different rules for two people in a similar situation, the one just claiming UC can work as many hours as they like and the one on ESA can't ? I once asked a very experienced advisor on a training course on UC which set of rules would apply to someone in your son's situation who is claiming both ESA and UC and even they could not answer the question but there must be some guidance somewhere !

elsien

Is he not able to claim PIP at all?

8dayweek

Rubyroobs said:

It's odd rules because on ESA he is limited by the permitted work rules but if he were just claiming the LCWRA element on UC instead of ESA as well he would have no limit on how many hours he could work. Hopefully someone will come along and explain why there are two different rules for two people in a similar situation, the one just claiming UC can work as many hours as they like and the one on ESA can't ? I once asked a very experienced advisor on a training course on UC which set of rules would apply to someone in your son's situation who is claiming both ESA and UC and even they could not answer the question but there must be some guidance somewhere !

It’s just because legacy benefits like ESA / JSA / IS are / were predominantly “out of work” benefits, then you had Tax Credits as the predominantly “in work” benefit. 

UC is effectively all of those benefits combined. 

Newcad

walking_footy_wizard said:

.....To enable him to do this what is the process of moving from ESA to Universal Credit only and are there any disadvantages.

The practical process would be to close the Contribution Based ESA.

Simply contact ESA and ask them to close it because he intends doing more work than Permitted Work allows. (Then once closed tell UC that, just to be sure that they know).

ESA payments would stop, but would also stop being deducted from UC - so UC would go up by the same amount as is currently being deducted for ESA, meaning no overall change in the money they get. It will just be all from UC rather than some ESA and then the rest UC.

The possible disadvantages of doing that is mainly that his current CB ESA is not affected by savings/capital so if they were to come into money (say a big lottery win, or a large  inheritance) UC will stop whereas the CB ESA would have continued. Being practical not many would see that as a great risk.

There is also that they wouldn't have the seperate fortnightly ESA payments so would have to budget for just one UC payment each month.

PS. As he has LCW/LCWRA in UC they will have a 'Work Alliwance' which means that he/they can earn more from work before it starts to be deducted at 55p in the pound from UC.

Rubyroobs

Newcad said:

walking_footy_wizard said:

.....To enable him to do this what is the process of moving from ESA to Universal Credit only and are there any disadvantages.

The practical process would be to close the Contribution Based ESA.

Simply contact ESA and ask them to close it because he intends doing more work than Permitted Work allows. (Then once closed tell UC that, just to be sure that they know).

ESA payments would stop, but would also stop being deducted from UC - so UC would go up by the same amount as is currently being deducted for ESA, meaning no overall change in the money they get. It will just be all from UC rather than some ESA and then the rest UC.

The possible disadvantages of doing that is mainly that his current CB ESA is not affected by savings/capital so if they were to come into money (say a big lottery win, or a large  inheritance) UC will stop whereas the CB ESA would have continued. Being practical not many would see that as a great risk.

There is also that they wouldn't have the seperate fortnightly ESA payments so would have to budget for just one UC payment each month.

PS. As he has LCW/LCWRA in UC they will have a 'Work Alliwance' which means that he/they can earn more from work before it starts to be deducted at 55p in the pound from UC.

Just to add they will already be getting  a work allowance anyway as he has a baby daughter.

walking_footy_wizard

Thanks all. He will call them tomorrow. Just worried about how long the switch might take as he has found a job which might suit him very well and he wouldn't want to lose it while waiting.

In answer to other points raised:
*  He does only work up to the permitted amount each week - usually about 14 hours in his case.
 * He was on PIP for many years but this was withdrawn earlier this year as at the moment he is able to do things which mean his points score is too low. That's the problem with variable mental health - when he is a bit better he doesn't meet all the criteria.

Spoonie_Turtle

walking_footy_wizard said:

Thanks all. He will call them tomorrow. Just worried about how long the switch might take as he has found a job which might suit him very well and he wouldn't want to lose it while waiting.

In answer to other points raised:
*  He does only work up to the permitted amount each week - usually about 14 hours in his case.
 * He was on PIP for many years but this was withdrawn earlier this year as at the moment he is able to do things which mean his points score is too low. That's the problem with variable mental health - when he is a bit better he doesn't meet all the criteria.

If he's already claiming UC then there is no problem at all.  Informing ESA of a job working above the permitted work threshold will end his claim anyway.  There's no 'moving', just ending a claim 

In terms of PIP, I believe the variability has to be looked at over the course of a year.  But if his fluctuations are over a longer time frame than that, e.g. he has years of being more functional and then years of not, then the PIP decision could well be correct for now.

walking_footy_wizard

Thanks v much, that is so helpful