ESA/UC transitional protection and other points of confusion

Newcad

After the first look:

The UC statement is missing any LCWRA Element.

There should be one, but we are aware that they are often not showing up on the first Statement because of delays.
Bear with me though, and I'll tell you what to do about that later.
For your ESA before the change you said:
"This was £48.10 every two weeks."
I can't make any sense of that figure unless it's wrong or there were deductions?

leamingtonspaceman

Newcad said:

After the first look:

The UC statement is missing any LCWRA Element.

There should be one, but we are aware that they are often not showing up on the first Statement because of delays.
Bear with me though, and I'll tell you what to do about that later.
For your ESA before the change you said:
"This was £48.10 every two weeks."
I can't make any sense of that figure unless it's wrong or there were deductions?

Sorry, that should have said £481.10 every two weeks...

leamingtonspaceman

I just FINALLY got through to someone at ESA. Let's make this day a bank holiday...

Joking aside, I was told the following:

Up until 20th March 2025 I was getting:

ESA Personal Allowance: £90.50 pw
SDP: £81.50 pw
ESA Support Group: £47.70 pw
EDP: £20.85 pw

From 21st March 2025, my partner and I both get:

New Style ESA Personal Allowance: £90.05 pw
ESA Support Group: £48.50 pw

No idea why they changed it from 21st March when I moved in with my wife on the 16th?

leamingtonspaceman

Newcad said:

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?

Yes, it was a managed migration letter. 

The letter was dated 28th April and said we had to make a UC claim by 11th June.

We made the claim for UC immediately and it began on 1st May 2025.

leamingtonspaceman

When I informed them of a change of circumstances, they put me onto new style ESA.

They took away the SDP and EDP.

So, are the SDP and EDP parts taken away because I moved in with my wife?

And if they are, that's when I will have to try and get them retrospectively if my wife's PIP tribunal is successful.

Newcad

Those ESA figures are great, but as you say there appears to be something wrong with the date.
If you reported the CoC. ie moving in together, on the 16th March then the change should have been from the 16th March not the 20th March.
It does mean that you possibly got a few days more SDP and EDP than you should have.

I'm also not convinced that yours should have changed to New Style ESA at that time, in my eyes the SDP should have stopped but you should still have had Old Style ESA with the EDP as an Income Related Premium up until you claimed UC. 
@Spoonie_Turtle Could you give an opinion on that please? It could be pretty important if the wife gets awarded PIP at tribunal.

OK though, let's be practical.
We aren't all the way there yet, we still need to look at the possibility of a TE later.
But you can get started with a couple of things.

First:
You should log into UC and go to your Journal>Add a Journal Entry, where it asks what the message is about put it under 'Payment'.

Tell then that as you (and your wife both) are getting ESA Support Group then there should be a LCWRA Element included with your UC.

Next:
Your Wife should log into UC and in her UC account go to Home>Report a Change>Caring for someone.

Tell them that *your wife* is caring for *you* for more than 35 hours a week.
That should get a Carer Element added to your UC.
I've said you/your wife there but it doesn't mattter who does the LCWRA and who does the Carers.
However you should do it seperately because one person can't have both those Elements at the same time, but you can have one each.
Getting both of those 2-Elements added should mean that instead of £0 you are then entitled to a UC payment of £35.07 a month.

More later on the possible TE.

leamingtonspaceman

All along I've thought that when I informed ESA of the change to my circumstances that I should have remained on legacy ESA and just had my SDP removed. You've kind of confirmed that.

But, speaking to the person at ESA just now, he told me that isn't the case and that because my circumstances changed then it became a joint ESA claim. But it isn't a joint ESA claim as we get separate New Style ESA payments.

I'm also confused by the LCWRA payment. I'm reading that this should be £423.27 a month (see attached). But my LCWRA payment has only ever been £47.70 pw and now £48.50 pw. That's just shy of £200 per month, nowhere near £423.27 a month??? 

Newcad

Don't get confused, that is the UC LCWRA element which is more generous than the ESA Support Group payment. You cant really compare them directly because they combine with other payments.
Overall though when you compare the various 'standard*' ESA groups and premiums to the UC elements they come out at about the same.

I think last time I did a full comparision you got about £18 a week more on UC+LCW than you did with ESA+SG+EDP.

When I migrated from ESA WRAG to UC LCW there was a whole 2p a month difference in the overall payments.

It's a swings and roundabouts thing, some bits of UC are higher than ESA some bits are lower. It all comes out in the wash.

*SPD was not classed as a 'standard' ESA element which is why it needs a TE if/when it is migrated to UC.

PS. As we have said before, the people you talk to on the telephones are poorly trained and often don't really know what is what so can tell you the wrong things, and they frequently do.

leamingtonspaceman

I think this is what happened:

1. I wrote to ESA about my change of circumstances.

2. They sent an ESA3 form which I returned.

3. ESA received this and moved me onto new style ESA from the date I moved in with my wife.

4. My wife continued to get new style ESA 

5. We claimed UC but because I was not on a legacy benefit I have no transitional protection.

What should have happened at point 3. above is that I should not have been moved to new style ESA. I should have remained on legacy ESA until we claimed UC. I would then have got transitional protection.

BUT...

I posted this in an earlier post:

Changes to your circumstances before you claim

If you have a significant change of circumstances before you claim Universal Credit, you may not be entitled to some elements of transitional protection.  

Changes to your relationship status before you claim will mean you are not entitled to the transitional element. If a partner moves into your household and they did not receive a Migration Notice, you will not be entitled to any element of transitional protection.   

Changes to your benefits entitlement before you claim may mean you will not be entitled to any element of transitional protection.

Changes to your circumstances after your claim 

If you have a significant change of circumstances after transitional protection has been awarded to your Universal Credit claim, your transitional protection may end.

The following are significant changes of circumstances:  

• changes to your relationship status, such as a partner moving into or out of your household  

If the above is true, then the only way I would have got transitional protection would have been to carry on living alone, have a managed migration to UC and continued to live alone???

Spoonie_Turtle

Newcad said:

I'm also not convinced that yours should have changed to New Style ESA at that time, in my eyes the SDP should have stopped but you should still have had Old Style ESA with the EDP as an Income Related Premium up until you claimed UC. 
@Spoonie_Turtle Could you give an opinion on that please? It could be pretty important if the wife gets awarded PIP at tribunal.

…

Tell them that *your wife* is caring for *you* for more than 35 hours a week.
That should get a Carer Element added to your UC.
I've said you/your wife there but it doesn't mattter who does the LCWRA and who does the Carers.

I'm not very conversant with the legacy benefits but it is my understanding that legacy cbESA with the possibility of income-related top-up only converts to nsESA upon claiming UC.

Just a point - wife has to be caring for OP, at this time, since wife doesn't have PIP (yet), unless I've misunderstood the reference to wife's PIP tribunal.

leamingtonspaceman said:

I think this is what happened:

1. I wrote to ESA about my change of circumstances.

2. They sent an ESA3 form which I returned.

3. ESA received this and moved me onto new style ESA from the date I moved in with my wife.

4. My wife continued to get new style ESA 

5. We claimed UC but because I was not on a legacy benefit I have no transitional protection.

What should have happened at point 3. above is that I should not have been moved to new style ESA. I should have remained on legacy ESA until we claimed UC. I would then have got transitional protection.

BUT...

I posted this in an earlier post:

Changes to your circumstances before you claim

If you have a significant change of circumstances before you claim Universal Credit, you may not be entitled to some elements of transitional protection.  

Changes to your relationship status before you claim will mean you are not entitled to the transitional element. If a partner moves into your household and they did not receive a Migration Notice, you will not be entitled to any element of transitional protection.   

Changes to your benefits entitlement before you claim may mean you will not be entitled to any element of transitional protection.

The way I understand it is this:
If you have a significant change of circumstances between your legacy benefit claim and claiming UC, the above applies.

BUT

Points 1 and 2 were before the migration letter.  Your CoC had already happened, the uncertainty is whether ESA dealt with that properly (as I said above I'm not fully conversant with legacy benefits so I don't have an opinion on whether point 3 did happen - I have to leave that to the more experienced members).

What should have happened - in my understanding - is you should have had a legacy couple's ESA claim, but with your wife's ns-ESA I don't know what the result would have been for any ir-ESA.  The result will be different again if your wife is awarded PIP at tribunal, because the income-based calculation should include 2xSDP unless you live with any other non-disregarded adult(s).