Lcwra/New health element

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emc123

Hi, anyone familiar with the greenpaper proposals, Is the Substantial risk still being scrapped from the LCWRA (New health element) please, ie if Substantial risk was your reason for LCWRA will this element payment be Lost come Reassessment Before the new changes, and/or After.

Particularly if you're reassessed Before the changes would you lose LCWRA element if you were given it due to Substantial risk.

Many thanks

noonebelieves

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/132830/lcwra-new-health-element

Hi @emc123, this is a great and important question—and understandably confusing, as the proposals in the Pathways to work Green Paper are deliberately designed to be complex and, in many areas, quite vague.

From what we know so far from the Green paper proposal :

Yes, the government has proposed to abolish the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), which currently includes both LCW and LCWRA. This means that the LCWRA designation—and therefore , the “Substantial Risk” route into LCWRA—would no longer exist under the new system.

Instead, under the new proposals, PIP will become the single functional assessmentfor determining eligibility for health-related financial support within Universal Credit. However, the government also proposes to “modernise” the PIP assessments (see point 157–159 of the green paper), which raises further uncertainty about how those future assessments will be designed and what criteria they will involve. So, the honest answer is -we don’t yet know what these new assessments/criteria will actually look like. The only fact we know about the proposed plan is that a new additional requirement will be introduced, requiring claimants to score at least four points in one daily living activity to qualify for the daily living component of PIP.Therefore eligibility for the UC health element will instead be linked directly to receiving the PIP daily living component.

Specifically, point 114 and 115 in the Green Paper confirm:

“Both UC and PIP will still exist in the reformed system. UC will remain a means-tested benefit for those people that are in work and on a low income, or are out of work. Without the WCA eligibility criteria, the additional health element in UC will no longer be linked in any way to someone’s capacity to work or their work status. Instead, eligibility to the additional UC health element will be based on whether someone is receiving any Daily Living Award in PIP.”

So under the new system, there will be no assessment of work capability and therefore, no route via “Substantial Risk” either. The proposed new health element of UC will instead rely on receiving any PIP Daily Living award.

To your specific question about reassessment before the new rules come in:

If someone is reassessed now, before April 2026, they would still be assessed under the current system ,including the Substantial Risk criteria as the proposed changes haven’t yet taken effect.

In point 133, the Green Paper also states:

“We will guarantee that no-one who has been found LCWRA prior to April 2026 and remains LCWRA following reassessment will see their UC health element entitlement changed.”

This suggests that those who already have LCWRA before April 2026 and continue to meet the criteria on reassessment will not lose their health element, at per the script within the Green proposal document. Also, for this group, the UC health element rate will be frozen at £97 per week until 2029/30, although they may receive an increased standard allowance to make up for it.

So in summary:

   •   The Substantial Risk route will no longer exist after the abolition of the WCA.

   •   If you’re reassessed before the changes come into effect(no one knows when), current rules (including Substantial Risk) still apply.

   •   If you retain LCWRA status after reassessment before April 2026, the Green Paper says you will not see your UC health element reduced, at least through 2029/30.

   •   After the reforms, eligibility for extra support will depend on PIP Daily Living criteria, not LCWRA or Substantial Risk.

Finally, like many of us on Scope, I feel these proposals are designed to confuse and obscure what is really at stake for disabled people. Many crucial issues, like the one you’ve raised are not being properly consulted on, which is unacceptable.

Please take a moment to check out the Scope Green Paper Proposals thread on the home page if you haven’t already. It’s vital we continue to support one another and speak up while we still can.

We must not let these changes go unchallenged.

Please note: I am not a benefits advisor. I’m simply a disabled person using Scope to share what I’ve understood after reading these proposals, with the aim of challenging the benefit cuts and empowering others to do the same. Moving on , It might also be helpful for you  to discuss questions about the Green Paper proposals in the main thread, as many members could benefit from the discussion and contribute their own perspectives.

Best Wishes