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Please help ESA letter makes no sense

sunflower2

So my mum migrated over to UC on the 20th of may had her ID check on the 12th of June and her first UC payment is due on Thursday but we've now had a letter today from ESA dated the 14th June and we don't understand it at all. I'll post photos below.

But it's saying that after a recent changes she'll be getting £161.75 a week but that makes no sense because we are 100% certain her ESA is all income based as she's not worked since 1999 and claimed ESA for the first time in 2010 and before that was on JSA and she's been on ESA ever since.

At first I thought does this mean she was on contribution based ESA but she can't have been she has worked in years before applying for ESA for the first time and I'm sure the rate for that is £140.55 or something like that not £161.75 so we're really confused.

And surely her income ESA is supposed to stop now she's claiming UC since this was dated 2 days after her ID check

What does this mean?

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OverlyAnxious

Hi,

That letter is just very late. UC can't have sent her info across to ESA quickly enough. That is for the old ESA rates, it's nothing to do with UC at all and she won't be getting paid that amount.

You can call ESA to confirm if you like, but personally I would just ignore the letter and carry on with getting UC sorted out.

sunflower2

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1040683#Comment_1040683

If this is just the new rates letter then they've sent it twice as we had a similar letter in march but that letter didn't say anything about 2015-2016 tax year?

So this is just about the rate she gets paid just worded differently? Because it states after a recent change

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1040684#Comment_1040684

That wouldn't surprise me.

New Style ESA is £281.10 a fortnight and doesn't come with any of the premiums so it's definitely nothing to do with that. And as you know, old ESA stops when UC starts so it's not that either. It can only be an error or mistake on their part.

sunflower2

Thanks @OverlyAnxious you explain things way better than the DWP.

Can I ask if I'm correct or not if mums ESA was contribution and income based wouldn't she have been getting more than £161.75 a week? Isn't this the income related amount only?

And I've just thought if it was new style ESA it would state shed get any new amount from the date she applied for UC but this letter says the 12th April when she applied for UC on the 20th May.

Amy understating is to be eligible for new style ESA you have to have been working in the last 3yrs and she hasn't worked since 1999

OverlyAnxious

You're welcome.

It's not possible to tell from that letter whether she was getting Contributions Based or not. Contributions Based alone is less than Income Related, so that could be CB with an IR top up. But equally it could just be all IR. The only thing I can say for certain from that letter is that it definitely isn't CB only.

If this was a letter for New Style ESA it would say 'New Style', so it's definitely not that.

New claims for NS ESA require work within the last 3 years, but that doesn't apply to UC migrations. Anyone who had CB ESA before migrating to UC automatically gets NS ESA regardless of whether they have worked or not. This generally seems to be people who got Incapacity Benefit before they got Income Related ESA. But there might be other reasons for it as well.

sunflower2

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1040704#Comment_1040704

Thank you again.

She never received incapacity benefit she worked since she was 16 years old until 1999 when she had to give up her job to look after my sister who was 2 at the time because my dad couldn't handle looking after her in the evening while mum worked so she went on income support until my sister was school age then was moved to JSA until around 2010 when she applied for ESA and has been on ESA ever since.

Wasn't it the same for contribution ESA that you had to have worked within a few years of claiming?

Im trying to figure out if mums is income only or not without her phoning as she hates phoning ESA

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1040708#Comment_1040708

It was the same with CB ESA needing work within a few years. But again when people moved from other benefits, the work requirement didn't apply. There might have been other benefits that caused this to happen, the only one I am sure of is Incapacity Benefit.

There's no need to ring ESA. If your Mum was getting partly CB before, then it will automatically be moved to NS ESA now. The easiest thing to do is just wait and see whether they send an NS ESA letter or they send a message through the journal about NS ESA.