Migration from income based ESA support group to universal credit

sue2711

I have had the statement for my first Universal Credit payment! It has been amended to include a transitional payment! I was in the esa support group with enhanced disability premium and severe disability premium.
I have attached a copy of the statement as I can’t see where the LCWRA element is or is this included in the transitional payment?
Thanks for any help!

CosmoChic

Assuming the deduction for ESA is £609.05, you are correct.  Your statement appears to be missing the £423.27 LCWRA element.

Robbie64

There's no LCWRA included in the above. Your Transitional Protection amount may need closer examination as well. Assuming your Housing Costs figure matches your Housing Benefit amount (although based on monthly not 4 weekly figures) I can't work out how UC calculated the TP as being £199.63. I do feel like it should be higher, if everything else was calculated correctly. That said, calculating TP seems to be more complicated than it should be, so perhaps I've calculated it incorrectly (if LCWRA was included, I worked out the TP should be £236.74).

Was your ESA £244.65 per week / £489.30 per fortnight? Not that this should matter, was any of your ESA contributory based ESA? If it was, is £609.05 being deducted from your UC?

The £236.74 TP I calculated is based on a simple ESA = £244.65 per week / £1060.15 monthly equivalent. UC (ignoring housing costs) is £400.14 (basic allowance) + £423.27 (LCWRA) = £823.41. £1060.15 - £823.41 = £236.74, which should be the TP. However, it's possible that I've worked this out incorrectly but it does seem like it should be as straightforward as this when calculating the TP. Obviously the housing costs would also be included in the calculation but if your Housing Benefit, when worked out monthly matches the amount of Housing Costs you have in UC then the TP should still be the same figure (£236.74).

Robbie64

CosmoChic said:

Assuming the deduction for ESA is £609.05, you are correct.  Your statement appears to be missing the £423.27 LCWRA element.

The missing LCWRA figure should also (in theory) have an effect on the amount of Transitional Protection.

Newcad

It is not unusual at the moment for the LCWRA Element not to be on your first statement.

That's because there is a backlog in ESA confirming your Support Group status to UC.
(When the DWP 'ramped-up' sending out migration notices they forgot that they would need more ESA staff to do the extra confirmations needed. Plus they appear to have gone back to doing them by paperwork rather than by computer for some reason).

The LCWRA element will be backpaid once that confirmation is received.

rosewalk

TNewcad said:

It is not unusual at the moment for the LCWRA Element not to be on your first statement.

That's because there is a backlog in ESA confirming your Support Group status to UC.
(When the DWP 'ramped-up' sending out migration notices they forgot that they would need more ESA staff to do the extra confirmations needed. Plus they appear to have gone back to doing them by paperwork rather than by computer for some reason).

The LCWRA element will be backpaid once that confirmation is received.

This is quite a widespread issue. You may want to consider contacting the Help to Claim service operated by Citizens Advice for further advice on 0800 144 8 444. They may advise you to submit a Mandatory Reconsideration or make a formal complaint. I understand that they are currently dealing with lots of similar cases. 

TimeLord1

Put a message in your journal under payments stating that LCWRA is missing, as you had a previous entitlement to Support Group ESA, and an agent will look into this for you.

TimeLord1

I also think it's this that is causing all the requests for fit notes; people are experiencing a lot at the moment. But the letters are still being sent out at pace, asking people to migrate.

Newcad

TimeLord1 said:

I also think it's this that is causing all the requests for fit notes;

The 2-issues do appear to be linked somehow to delays in the confirmation process.

A new procedure was put in place on the UC computer to stop the Fit Note requests being sent out to ESA Managed Migration cases.

However as I mentioned above it appears that for some reason they have reverted to using the old (paper form?) MGP1 process for some reason.*

I guess it is that which is also bypassing the newer 'no fit note' block?

*(Maybe to help deal with the backlog they drafted in some previous ESA staff who knew the old MGP1 but aren't trained on the new computer confirmation system?)

TimeLord1

I think they're pushing the limits now, @Newcad, to gather all the information and process everything on time, and before those are done, the computer has sent thousands more migration notices, and it will get worse. I think where ESA is concerned, you can tell they haven't got the staff because all they want to do is pass people back to UC to deal with it. That's if you get pass the AI robot.

Newcad

Risking going off topic, but this does affect a lot of the remaining ESA claimants money.

Everyone knew/knows they were not fully prepeared to migrate the most complicated ESA cases, I'm pretty certain that even the DWP (and the Government) knew it.

I'm also pretty certain that they would never have been be fully prepared, and that they knew/know that too.
So 'Full speed ahead damn the torpedos', and deal with the casualties later. (or not).
I expect there will be appeals going on for a few years after the 'official' announcement that Migration to UC has beeen completed.