ESA/UC transitional protection and other points of confusion

Spoonie_Turtle

leamingtonspaceman said:

If your Universal Credit decreases to zero due to your earnings increasing

If your earnings mean your Universal Credit is reduced to zero for 4 assessment periods in a row, your transitional protection will end. If your earnings then decrease, you may be eligible to apply for Universal Credit again, but will not receive transitional protection.  

Because we are getting zero UC, then this would also strip away transitional protection. 

This part refers to earnings, wages from working.  Not income from benefits which is what ESA is.

Newcad

leamingtonspaceman said:

I've learnt more from all of your replies than I ever would from the DWP... thank you all so much.

I apologise if my way of posting here is possibly convoluted. I am autistic and my methodology is to give context/history and then pose my questions in a numbered order. I like it when individual responders use the numbering system I've used to reference their answers.

Not a problem at all.

1.  Yes. It would appear that your current (see point #9) UC entitlement, ie. without any TE, is less than you are getting from your combined CB ESA awards. So the combined ESA payments are 'zeroing' the UC payment.

2.  No. You each have your own 'New Style' CB ESA claim.

3.  Yes, As said in #2.

4.  What ages are you both? UC Standard Allowance can vary with age.

5.  Yes. You will both continue to get your individual CB ESA until/unless:
            a) You are found Fit For Work at a reassessment.
            b) You start working for more than 16 hours a week, or earning over 16x minimum wage.
            c) You reach State Pension Age. (ESA is a 'Working Age benefit').
            d) You close your claim yourself.
            e) You die early. (Before SPA).

6.  Either you misunderstood what he said, or as said by the others - Job Centre staff are poorly trained. 
    You cannot have IR ESA and UC at the same time, but you can have CB ESA and UC at the same time.

7.  CB ESA is not subject to savings, it can be subject to income from working see 5.b) above.

8.  Again see 5.b) above.

9.  Yes if your wife is successful in her PIP tribunal and is awarded her own PIP (Daily Living) then you will both have qualified for SDP on the date that you claimed UC.
    That means that if she gets awarded PIP then you should ask the DWP to look at your migration again.
    I suggest that you will need help with that from a local benefits/welfare advisor.
    That will get complicated, particularly if they have closed your UC in the meantime.
    If she does win at tribunal then come back and we can go into that then.

10. You may get a response. However it will probably just be confusing, they are not good at explaining things as you have already found out.
      I do not expect anything will change though.
      From what I can see what the DWP have done is correct as things stand.
      Your wife's tribunal outcome may change that though.
    

Spoonie_Turtle

Newcad said:

leamingtonspaceman said:

I've learnt more from all of your replies than I ever would from the DWP... thank you all so much.

I apologise if my way of posting here is possibly convoluted. I am autistic and my methodology is to give context/history and then pose my questions in a numbered order. I like it when individual responders use the numbering system I've used to reference their answers.

Not a problem at all.

1.  Yes. It would appear that your current (see point #9) UC entitlement, ie. without any TE, is less than you are getting from your combined CB ESA awards. So the combined ESA payments are 'zeroing' the UC payment.

Would that still be the case if OP's wife qualifies for the carer element (as OP receives PIP)?

(And would that be classed as a CoC to remove TP if OP's wife's tribunal goes in her favour?)

Newcad

The starting point has to be how much their Standard Allowance would be (which depends on their ages),

A carer Element may be possible, but it also needs a LCWRA Element which they don't have at the moment.
Remember that they didn't have IR ESA on the day that they claimed UC so a UC LCWRA Element was not automatic.

I've done  a quick breakdown assuming that both are over 25, please check my numbers:

CB ESA SG (over 25) £92.05 + £48.50 = £140.55
140.55 x 52/12 = £609.05 monthly deduction from UC
There are 2 CB ESA claims so £609.05 x2 = £1218.10 total deduction from UC

UC Standard Allowance (couple one orboth over 25) = £628.10

Obviously that is Nilled by the deductions.

They need to get a LCWRA Element and a Carer Element added, which is a stumbling block.
As far as I can see then that will take time - one of them will have to start sending in Fit Notes and go through the WCA again.
EDIT - I'm wrong there - Their Support Group in ESA should give them a LCWRA Element automatically, but  because there was no IR ESA that may not have been picked up by UC.

LCWRA Element (x1) = £423.27
Total UC = £1051.37

That's still Nilled by the deductions.

Then if a Carer Element can be added:
Carer Element = £201.68
Giving a Total UC of £1253.17

So if both a LCWRA Element and a Carer Element can be added then:
£1253.17 - £1218.10 = £35.07 UC would be payable a month.

(Then the possible TE can be looked at later if/when depending on the PIP tribunal outcome).

Of course it's more than just the money though, it's the other things that having an Income Related benefit can entitle you to.
eg. Free or reduced cost Healthcare access, possible Council Tax Reduction, with UC you can apply for a budgeting Advance after 6 months (interest free loan), the CoL payments were an obvious extra, but there also onging things such as cheap social broadband and/or phone packages

leamingtonspaceman

Once again, thank you for your responses. It does mean a lot and is extremely helpful.

1. Regarding our ages, I am 56 and my wife is 35.

2. Regarding LCWRA, I was receiving this as part of my ESA claim. After reporting my change of circumstances to ESA, they sent me the ESA3 form. After returning that, they moved me to new style ESA and took away the LCWRA payment and the SDP payment.

3. Should I now be receiving the LCWRA payment as a UC payment?

4. Is the LCWRA payment dependent on transitional protection or is that JUST the SDP?

5. Should I have not been moved to new style ESA at all and stayed on legacy ESA?

6. If #5 was the case, I would have been on IR ESA when our joint UC claim began.

7. Change of circumstances was 16th March 2025. At this point I was receiving legacy ESA support group with LCWRA and SDP. My wife was claiming contributions based new style ESA with no LCWRA payment. Our joint UC claim began on 1st May 2025.

8. My wife is in the ESA support group but as far as I'm aware has never received a LCWRA payment? Should she have been receiving this and should she still be getting it now?

I have tried calling ESA numerous times and after around 90 minutes of waiting I get cut-off. This has happened four times now so that's six hours of wasted time.

I really REALLY do appreciate all the help I'm getting from EVERYONE who is posting. It really does make a difference.

Thank you...

Newcad

@leamingtonspaceman

Let me take time to have a read back at what has already been said here and have a think about things, back later.

Newcad

@leamingtonspaceman In your first post you said:

"I then received a letter stating my new payment was what I received before minus the SDE, which I was expecting to be the case."

Could you tell us how much that letter said your new ESA payment would be? (I'm trying to work something out that may be important here).

EDIT- I assume that you have had a UC Statement by now can you also tell us, or post a screen shot of what that says for payments and deductions?

For example my latest one says:

leamingtonspaceman

Newcad said:

@leamingtonspaceman In your first post you said:

"I then received a letter stating my new payment was what I received before minus the SDE, which I was expecting to be the case."

Could you tell us how much that letter said your new payment would be? (I'm trying to work something out that may be important here).

Hi,

Thanks for responding.

So, I have been confused myself.

I thought that the LCWRA payment was the SDP payment.

So, I was receiving ESA Support Group, LCWRA payment and SDP payment. This was £481.10 every two weeks.

After reporting the change of circumstances and returning the ESA3 form, my payments are now £281.10 every two weeks from ESA and so far, £0.00 from our joint UC claim in the 6 weeks since our claim began.

So since the change of circumstances, I have lost exactly £200 every two weeks.

My wife's ESA payments are £281.10 every two weeks, the same as mine.

leamingtonspaceman

Here is the UC statement:

Newcad

Thanks for those I'll take a look.

Just to clarify something: 
Support Group is LCWRA. They are different names for the same thing.

Another question that could be important for the possible TE, you said:
"In April I received a letter saying the claim was to be migrated to UC."

What was the date that letter was sent?
Was it a Managed Migration notice, did it give you a date by wich you had to claim UC?