How long after a Fit Note is LCWRA paid

LuminousVoid

Hi,

I hope someone can help me understand this.

I signed up to UC on 29/07/24. My first assessment period was 29/07-28/08, next one was 29/08-28/09 and so on...

I provided a Fit Note on 08/08/24.

I had my WCA and was awarded LCWRA.

I understand you start getting LCWRA from the 4th month after a 3 month waiting period.

So my question is from what date does LCWRA apply to me? Is it 3 months from 08/08/24 i.e. 08/11/24?

I get paid on the 4th of each month.

I've tried going through multiple forum posts on the same subject and can't make sense of them. Seems I'm not the only one baffled by it.

Thank you for your help.

OverlyAnxious

Hi, it's not counted in months, it's counted in assessment periods.

The period in which you provide the note is disregarded. So your 3 waiting periods are:

29/8-28/9

29/9-28/10

29/10-28/11

LCWRA gets added to the 4th period: 29/11-28/12

So your first LCWRA payment should have been 4th of January.

LuminousVoid

Hi OverlyAnxious,

Thank you for clearly explaining that. Any idea why the period I provided the fit not gets completely disregarded?

Even though I know I should feel very grateful for the extra help I am getting, I can't but help feel like I am being scammed for the first month that is being disregarded.

Kind regards.

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/975964#Comment_975964

No problem. That's just how UC works I'm afraid, it's calculated in full assessment periods and you didn't provide the fit note until part way through that period.

poppy123456

The reason that first month isn't counted is because you didn't provide your first fit note until 8th August. If you had reported your health condition when you first claimed on 29th July and provided a fit note within 7 days then that month would have counted.

It has to be 3 full assessment periods. The extra money is then paid from the 4th month, with first payment being the end of that month because UC is paid 1 month in arrears.

poppy123456

One question, does your UC include any Transitional Protection? (TP) If it does then this will erode once the LCWRA element is included. Whether you'll be any better off will depend on how much the TP is.

LuminousVoid

Thank you both for clearly explaining how it works.

LuminousVoid

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/975979#Comment_975979

Yes it does.

poppy123456

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/976041#Comment_976041

This means that if it's more than £416.19 then you will be no better off when the LCWRA element is included. It will be worse if your UC also includes the carers element for yourself because you will lose that as well as the TP.

LuminousVoid

Thanks for that. Yes the Transactional Protection has gone down by the amount of the LCWRA. However, I am overall better off as the Benefit Cap has now been removed.

Jimm_Alumni

Hey @LuminousVoid, just wanted to say welcome to the online community 😊 I hope the answers you've got here have been helpful. I hope the community can become a place of support and guidance. You will likely have experiences and knowledge that you can share and help others with too! You can get a pretty wide range of topics across the whole community.