Income Support Claimant pre 03/04/17 in receipt due to sickness/ disability and UC Managed Migration

Is there a work around, so that a claimant in receipt Income Support (Claim pre 03/04/17 in receipt due to sickness/ disability); would not have to go through a work capability assessment before the LCW element can be included from the start of the award. The client in question, has multiple ill health and disabilities.

Reg 22 Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014 (UC (TP) Regs).

You’ve sort of answered your own question haven’t you? Reg 22 provides that if a WCA concludes that the claimant has LCW/LCWRA then that is applicable from the start of the award. Its inherent in that provision that there needs to be a WCA.

There doesn’t necessarily need to be an in-person assessment with a HCP if that is the concern - a paper assessment is still possible if appropriate - but the exercise of establishing which descriptors apply needs to be gone through. The difference of one of these (rare) cases with someone migrating from ESA is that the ESA claimant will have already had a WCA.

The significance of 03/04/17 is that this is the date on which the WRAC / LCW element ceased to be payable in relation to new claims for ESA/UC. In the event that your client is found to have LCW, they would be entitled to the LCW element because of the saving provision at para 15, Sch. 2 of the Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional and Savings Provisions) Regulations 2017. Perhaps one of a tiny handful of people who skipped over ESA entirely to whom that provision would apply.

Hello I am still a bit confused (sorry) about Reg 22 here.
If the claimant on Income Support has a Disability Premium included in their applicable amount at the time of migration (they are getting PIP), do they have to go through a Work Capability Assessment at the time of being migrated to UC?
My apologies if I am being a bit slow on this one but I keep reading this thing… ultimately for the claimant, what really scares them is having to go through the WCA. This is where their fear and stress lie.

Prior to ESA being introduced in 2008, it was possible to claim Income Support on the basis of incapacity (as an equivalent to being a lone parent of a child under 5 or a carer etc.). Claimants were put through the WCA and transferred to ESA if they satisfied it - this process largely concluded the best part of a decade ago, but there are odd cases who still remain entitled to IS on incapacity because their case was overlooked in the transfer exercise.

Reg 22 exists so that claimants who were missed in the ESA transfer and end up claiming UC directly (skipping ESA altogether) are not disadvantaged by needing to serve the waiting period for the LCW/LCWRA element to be paid in their UC award. This is a very small group of people. Reg 22 does not mean that there is no WCA - a claimant will always need to go through the WCA at some point to get LCW/LCWRA elements - it just means that they get paid the element from three months sooner.

If your client is getting the disability premium, that is a separate thing to being awarded IS on the basis of incapacity. The disability premium is an additional amount of IS which is awarded typically because the claimant is getting DLA or PIP - but it has no direct relationship with the client’s work capability. Your client will still need to go through a WCA even if she is getting the disability premium.

OK, thank you. I understand. This helps. Appreciated.