Partners of ESA (couple rate) claimants

I had a client yesterday (who is claiming IR-ESA, support group, couple rate) who mentioned that she had received a letter a few months ago (which she did not have)  stating her partner may have to go for an interview at the JobCentre

I cannot find anything obvious online or in the handbooks about this - but I’ve got a vague memory of proposed changes to partners of those on couple rate ESA as they have so far avoided most conditionality. However I may have been imagining this.

Can anyone shed any light? Are there any upcoming or proposed changes?

Answering my own question - well it was more than proposed changes - WFIs have been ongoing for a number of years for partners of those claiming the couple rates specific benefits (including ESA) for more than 26 weeks. Covered in cpag on pg 1059 & SS Legislation vol III 1.27

Doh - I’m not sure how I’ve never come across a case before - or more likely forgot all about it!

Ive also wondered why the partners of ESA/IB were excluded for so long regarding WFIs.
Not on JSA so its not if they were trying to fiddle the figures.

I had an obviously sick man at 62 years of age who failed his IB to ESA conversion. I started with the MR process and explained that in the meantime the only other benefit available was JSA.

He said there was no way he could do JSA (which i agreed with) so i suggested to his wife that she be the claimant in the short term until appeal rights granted and ESA reinstated at appeal rate.

I felt for him as she downright refused saying “why should I ?”

One of those “Bite your tongue” moments as i really wanted to give her a piece of my mind.

Appeal won : she will now have to go to the Jobcentre anyway. She could have got a bit of practice in!

An amendment to the conditions for entitlement for IRESA was included in s5 of the Welfare Reform Act 2009 - that in order to claim IRESA both members of a couple would have to have LCW. This would have effectively meant that for a couple where one partner was ‘sick’ but the other ‘well’ the ‘well’ partner would have to claim JSA. It needed a statutory instrument to set a date for commencement but this was never done so the provision remained unused. There was a similar provision for sick people on IS. I was surprised that the coalition government never acted on this particularly with all the conversion cases they have had to get through but I suppose the idea is that UC will (eventually) achieve the same extension of conditionality.