ESA timeline

We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

LJT14723

Hi there. I’m new here but I have read lots of really useful information on here. 

I was awarded enhanced rate of PIP in February and I recently applied for ESA, I received a letter about an interview with a work coach which I did yesterday and the only thing mentioned was to follow the rules and she would send my claimant commitment for me to sign. 

This is the only correspondence I’ve had with them. I’m assuming I would need an assessment or something, from everything I’ve read I thought this happened first. So I’m just wondering what the timeline for the claim was. 

Many thanks 

poppy123456

Have you received a decision letter about your claim yet and whether you're entitled to any payments? If not then you should receive that at some point. Whether there's any entitlement to payments will depend on your NI contributions in tax years 2020/21 and 2021/22.

You will be referred for a work capability assessment at some point. Once this is done you'll receive the ESA50 form in the post. You will need to fill this in and return it with all your supporting evidence. It must be received back with them by the date in the letter. Once they receive this an assessment is most likely because most peeple have them. It's similar to PIP but very different criteria. How long you'll be waiting will depend on backlogs in your area. Some wait a few months, others wait several.

You can see the descriptors here for the Support Group. https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/employment-and-support-allowance/esa-glossary/support-group-descriptors