esa or universal credit?

fridgelicker

Hello everyone, I'm new here, and trying to find information on the best benefit options for my son William, who has autism. He already gets PIP, with enhanced rate for mobility, and he's due to move into Supported Living on 8th Sept. He left college in July, but I haven't claimed for Universal Credit yet, because, although we live in a UC area, he will be moving to an area that still has ESA (with UC due to be brought in, in that area, October this year)
 I have heard that ESA pays more, and also that the government has promised that anyone who already receives ESA will not be worse off when they are moved to UC - is this correct? He is losing benefit while he waits to move to his new address, but we will wait if it means that he will ultimately receive more money with ESA. I can't start a claim for ESA until he actually moves to his new address, because if I claim now it will register him with UC, and that will be permanent. 
Its all very complicated! Any help and/or advice would be much appreciated, many thanks

steve51

Hi @fridgelicker

Good Evening & Welcome to our Community.

We have got some info on “Benefits” here on our site.

Here’s the link for you below:

https://search.scope.org.uk/s/redirect?collection=scope-meta&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scope.org.uk%2Fsupport%2Fdisabled-people%2Fbenefits%2Fadvice&index_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scope.org.uk%2Fsupport%2Fdisabled-people%2Fbenefits%2Fadvice&auth=cS5QioUSKAAiHJ7Ut3EdBQ&profile=_default&rank=1&query=Benefits

We have also got a “Benefit Calculator” this will give you an idea of what “Benefits” are available for your son.

Here’s the link for that as well:

https://www.scope.org.uk/support/disabled-people/calculate-benefits

Please please let me know if I can help you with this???? 

fridgelicker

Many thanks for the advice Steve, I'll have a look at the links you sent, hopefully I can make sense of all of this! Thanks again, Julia