My experience of Migration to UC from ESA Support Group with Capital and student income

GoingslightlyMAD

Hello all, I hope you are all able to find some time to enjoy this weather. I wanted to offer my own experiences, and some tips that you may find helpful, in the process of managed migration. First of all an old-school reference here: DON'T PANIC! (of course I did, but having now come out of the otherside of it, I can say it wasn't so bad).

So, some facts: I am on PIP Daily Living, and before migrating to UC I was in the Support Group of Income-Related ESA and received both the Severe Disability Premium and Enhanced Disability Premium. Plus, I had a large payment from DWP last year due to not being paid SDP for over five years, plus, I am studying with the Open University (OU) and so have been receiving a student income too.

I received the Migration Notice Letter on the 2nd of January this year (happy new year?) and went into panic mode. I decided to wait until the day after my final payment on the old benefit system to apply.

TOP TIP FOR CHOOSING MIGRATION DAY: Apply for UC the day after a large payment, not the same day. I received all my old benefits as a final payment three weeks after applying for UC.

Don't forget to submit your UC claim within 28 days of starting the application online or you have to start again. Also, ensure you click on 'submit'.

I had some additional complexities due to my circumstances:

1. Large payment from DWP due to non payment of SDP for over five years. The UC system flagged this up when I applied, of course, as my capital was over 16,000. I left a message in my journal under 'message for work coach' stating the amount I received and that it was classified as an official error. I had to go into a job centre with my underpayment letters from the DWP. The person I spoke to was typing away for over an hour. But, the next day I had a letter on journal to say that the capital amount would be disregarded for the lifetime of my UC claim.
2. Student Income. I am studying part time with the OU. This means I receive student finance that should be discounted from my UC claim. However, following my very first UC payment I noticed that £250 had been incorrectly deducted and there was no Transitional Protection applied. So, I started to panic. I left loads of messages under the 'payments' section of my journal and received no reply for days. Then, I left a separate message under the 'message for my work coach'. I then received a reply within a few hours explaining that a decision maker was trying to figure out how much should be deducted from my UC due to my student income. The work coach also explained that any outstanding decisions mean that no transitional protection can be applied until that decision is resolved. So, the work coach escalated the task to the decision maker to complete as soon as possible. Three days later I have the decision maker's letter with the correct disregards and deducations for student income. Then, today, I have received a revised UC payment breakdown with the correct amount of transitional protection and the underpayment will be in my account in a few days.

Hope this helps to allay a few worries. Here are some key takeaways from my experience:

The Citizens Advice's Help to Claim Service will support you via webchat to figure out if your claim is correct, I found them very helpful.

Your first UC payment may not be correct. Try to budget for an additional week or two of incorrect payments in the move to UC. If your first payment is incorrect explain why you think it is wrong in your journal and designate the message to 'payments'. THEN, SEPARATELY, write a message in your journal to the 'work coach' asking them to clarify what is going on. They should be able to respond in a reasonable amount of time to explain what is going on and they might even escalate the task to the relevant department.

Capital disregards should not be a problem as long as you have letters from the DWP and/or bank statments explaining why the payment is a disregard. You may have to physically go into the job centre (I didn't enjoy that experience, but the advisor was very helpful and understanding.) I just showed the advisor the letter from the DWP and then they understood and sorted it out. It took an hour, but it's done now.

Student income can be problematic for UC. But, my decision maker was able to figure out the correct amount to be deducted and apply this to my payments. Here's something I didn't know and just found out: IF YOU HAVE ANY STUDENT INCOME DEDUCTED FROM YOUR UC THAT WASN'T DEDUCTED FROM YOUR OLD BENEFITS THEN YOUR TRANSITIONAL PROTECTION AMOUNT IS TOPPED UP FURTHER TO REFLECT THAT.

Well, that's my essay on transitioning to UC. I hope that it may be reassuring to anyone who is absolutely terrified by the process. If anyone has any further questions on this I will do my best to answer them, but I am not a qualified advisor and would strongly recommend the Citizens Advice's Help to Claim Service.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday Weekend! 😀