CB-ESA Changing to New Style ESA

FAFB

Hi. I have read on another site that in december all CB-ESA claims to change over to new style esa. Does anyone know what the reason for this is and are there any differences between the two? Thanks

Nightcity

It's an automatic move and at present the only difference is literally it's name.

edit. You may need to agree to a claimant commitment,seems a requirement in the move, if you're lcwra that's by phone usually and simply to agree to tell them of any change.

YogiBear

I haven't been notified yet. Can someone provide a link that gives information on this please?

Thanks

YogiBear

Found this information from the Benefits & Work site under 'News'.

News

CB-ESA awards to change to NS-ESA from 1 December (Members only)

 Published: 17 November 2025

All awards of contribution-based ESA will become New-Style ESA from 1st December 2025.

Currently, there are two types of ESA in existence:

• Income-related ESA (IR-ESA) is a means-tested benefit for people who are unable to work for health reasons and otherwise have a low income.  It is affected by your income and savings/capital and, if you live with a partner, you claim it as a couple.
• Contributory ESA– this is based on your own personal National Insurance contribution record and is not affected by savings, most forms of income or having a partner.

Under the old ‘legacy benefit’ system, contributory ESA was called ‘contribution-based ESA’ (CB-ESA).  You might be in receipt of this if you claimed contributory ESA before UC was rolled out in your area (so roughly around 2017/18 ish, depending on where you live). Within the Universal Credit system, the contributory version of ESA is called ‘New-Style ESA’ (NS-ESA).  The rules for both are the same, it’s just a name change. 

On 29th October 2025, the Government introduced the Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 35) (Abolition of Benefits) Order 2025 as part of dealing with the eventual closure of the legacy benefits system.  One of the provisions in their order is that all awards of contribution-based ESA will become New-Style ESA from 1st December 2025.

CB-ESA and NS-ESA have the same rules, and the amounts are the same so this change should not make any difference to the money you receive.  When someone makes a new claim for NS-ESA, or when their CB-ESA converts to it during managed migration to Universal Credit, they are asked to agree a claimant commitment with NS-ESA. 

The Order that is coming into effect on 1st December includes a provision that the Secretary of State can delay the preparation of a claimant commitment for as long as they see fit.  This means if you are affected by the change, you could be asked to agree a claimant commitment with the DWP in relation to your NS-ESA, but you might not be asked to do this straight away.

If you receive the support component of CB-ESA, you can’t be given any work-related requirements within NS-ESA. So, if you are asked to ‘attend’ a claimant commitment meeting, it would simply be to reaffirm your agreement to report any changes in your circumstances.  We’ve put ‘attend’ in quotes, because you can ask for a reasonable adjustment to have any claimant commitment meeting by phone if you need to because of your disability or health problem. 

If you receive the work-related activity component of CB-ESA, then any NS-ESA claimant commitment would involve discussing what might be reasonable work preparation activities.  As you can be asked to do these activities on CB-ESA, there isn’t really any difference between the requirements of the two benefits.

The other consequence of this rule relates to claiming a top-up of income-related ESA.  At the moment, if you receive the old-style contribution-based ESA, you can add a top up of IR-ESA. This might be the case if you make a successful claim for PIP and become entitled to the severe disability premium, for example.  From 1st December, your contribution-based ESA will become NS-ESA, which is part of the UC system. This means you can no longer add an IR- ESA top up. 

If you think you might be entitled to a top up of income-related ESA and you are not currently claiming it, it’s important to do so by 30th November 2025.  You can do this by contacting the ESA helpline on 0800 169 0310.  A change in your circumstances since you first claimed ESA might mean you are missing out of a top up.  For example, if your partner was working but has now stopped or if you had a non-dependant in your household who has now left, you might be missing out.  Seek advice if necessary, particularly if you are reading this after 1st December and didn’t claim any top-up you might have been entitled to.

The situation is a bit more complicated if you are not entitled to a top-up of IR-ESA now but are waiting on a decision on another benefit (like PIP) that might mean you would be entitled to an IR-ESA top-up.  If you are in this situation, we would suggest getting professional advice about how these rule changes could affect you.  It may be possible to retrospectively add the top-up, but this will depend on your specific circumstances.  

If you currently have a mixed award of CB-ESA and IR-ESA, you should have received a migration notice asking you to make a claim for Universal Credit under managed migration.  This process will continue as normal.  If you need support with the migration process up to receipt of the first correct payment, contact Citizens Advice Help to Claim. 

We would be interested to hear any experiences you might have of the conversion of CB-ESA claims to NS-ESA. 

Zipz

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1083952#Comment_1083952

I read the same. The B&W piece is focused on UC recipients.

I'm therefore even more concerned about those of us collecting CB-ESA until 1 December who have no UC eligibility and the relationship of our imminent change to the proposals for replacinibg NS-ESA and NS-JSA with a time-limited Unemployment Insurance Benefit that, this far, does not appear to differentiate between a fit 25 year-old and a person over 55 with a lifelong disability.

YogiBear

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1084085#Comment_1084085

It's all quite concerning @Zipz. Hopefully things will become clearer down the line what's going to happen.