Managed Migration: is there a 5-week wait?

The question is in the title!

I have a client on HB and CTC, with no other means-tested benefits. I need to advise her whether she would be better-off on UC. If she switches now she will presumably have a 5-week gap between CTC finishing and UC starting. Would that also be the case if she waits for managed migration?

There’s still a 5 week wait with managed migration in the sense that there is no run-on of CTC (although there is a 2 week run-on of HB), and UC is paid one month plus 7 days after date of claim, or after deadline day (if claim is made after deadline day but before final deadline day). She can request an advance whether voluntary or managed migration.

Someone being paid CTC 4 weekly might want to make their UC claim just after they have been paid.

The gap between the end of Legacy and the start of UC under Managed Migration is clearly troubling the official puppet masters. From the analysis to ‘Completing the Move to UC’ publication that came out in January 2023, one of the speculated remedies is to keep extending the Deadline Day until it would overtake a predictable gap between Legacy ending and UC starting, thereby preserving any TP and so on. That extension could come at any time, miles after the Final Deadline Day might otherwise have ended. Let’s see if that happens once all the designer DWP support ends along with the initial piloting.

Another claim in the same analysis reads… “...For those claimants who have their benefits terminated, if they make a UC claim within one month of their benefit being terminated, they have their claim backdated to their deadline date and still receive Transitional Protection where entitled.” Notice the certainty that backdating would be available. I cannot see such optimism from a reading of AW v SSWP, this optimism later echoed by Guy Opperman in a subsequent press release.

We seem to be coming full circle if the tone of the analysis quoted above continues into official policy. The original hard line on Managed Migration may be softening. The10% drop out from the 500 Bolton and Medway cases sampled (Legacy gone, and no UC) suggests that such a change would be well placed.

I meant AM v SSWP - apologies.

Isn’t the certainty on backdating of entitlement because of reg 48(3) of the UC(TP) Regs?

So for tax credits, that would mean making a claim within one month of tax credits terminating (by the end of a calendar month starting on the deadline day).

For the other legacy benefits, not quite right because they would continue for a further 2 weeks - but we shouldn’t need to worry about those this year.