Income Related ESA and the need to attend a medical

Sorry if this is obvious but for some reason I can’t seem to get it straight in my own mind.

Client is in his thirties and in part time education (15 hours a week) ,taking an Access course with a view to going to university. He is on IB but not IS as his IB income was too large.

After an appeal he was awarded DLA MRC and would therefore be entitled to the SDP and to get it he will have to claim ESA. Will a claim for Income Related ESA (he doesn’t need Cont. based as he is on IB) trigger a medical.?

Reg 33 of the ESA regs seems to be saying that a person over 19 years of age and in education is to be treated as having LCW and I assume that this means they are exempt from the medical.

Any thoughts or experiences of claimants in this situation or just IB claimants applying for Income Related ESA would be gratefully received

Am i missing something? He should claim IS shouldn’t he?

I don’t think he can any more, as I understood it new IS claims under these circs stopped at the end of Jan 2011.

I had a look at the CPAG handbook Pete - the new one - pages 311 to 313 which seem to indicate that he can still make a claim for IS - would you have a look and tell me if you think i’ve read it wrong please?

We asked about this last year and got this reply from DWP:

Where a customer makes a claim for an income-related top-up to an existing IB/SDA award (ie before the award is subject to reassessment), it will continue to be accepted as an IS claim; and where a customer who gets IS (for incapacity) (ie before the award is subject to reassessment), puts in a claim for IB (because they start to satisfy the contribution conditions), it will continue to be accepted as an IB claim. 
The circumstances described were covered in regulation 2(2)(d) and (e) of the ESA (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2008 (SI 2008/795), and Rosie will note that regulation 24 of the Employment and Support Allowance (Transitional Provisions, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit) (Existing Awards) (No. 2) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/1907) leaves these particular sub-paragraphs undisturbed.

So he should claim Income Support.

Thanks everyone, I’m not sure why I didn’t spot that!