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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Work capability issues and ESA  →  Thread

LCWRA and young people transferring to benefits in their own right. 

ASH
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Welfare officer - St Christopher's Hospice, SE London

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Joined: 16 June 2010

We have a client who is 19 and still in full time education but it is looking as if that this may end soon.  Currently her parents claim child benefit and child tax credit.  She he qualifies for the severely disabled child addition with the tax credits.  One of her parents is her appointee for the enhanced rates of PIP ( and all social security benefits it says ).

If she makes a claim for UC and has to wait 3 months to be assessed for the LCWRA, the family will lose about £1000 in benefits.  Is this inevitable (other than a special rules claim). 

Brian JB
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Advisor - Wirral Welfare Rights Unit, Birkenhead

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The short answer is “yes” and I come across this a lot when children reach the age of 20 and are still in education. Additionally, here, the adults may no longer qualify for as much help with council tax because they are not “vulnerable” under our CTS scheme once the disabled person is not a dependant.

If someone else knows a different answer, I would be glad to be provide incorrect!! As you say, it is a huge financial hit for these families

SueLov
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Welfare rights officer - Cornwall Council

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I have reached the same conclusions and it is really difficult to pass this onto families concerned . I’m really struggling with it and finding it hard to leave the emotional response to this at bay , in particular when dealing with clients who are lone parents claiming IS and CA , no other sources of income , the youngsters are receiving Enhanced Rate for both PIP components , attending special needs education and will continue in some sort of supported education .
The bottom line for the parents is the sudden loss of household cashflow which will have the obvious affects - there is no simple way of making up the difference - families tend to live in rural areas , lack of job opportunities , no easy access to public transport to get to towns , job ceyet to be had re : forthcoming implications of migrating to UC and the role of ‘technology’ in that !

What I am still unclear about reading through the various discussions and advice is which benefit parent should claim for the youngster because there is now no longer any automatic ‘LCW’ decision if the youngster is continuing in education and receiving the correct level of disability benefit . At first I thought UC but I now understand that such a claim will be refused immediately because the youngster does not have a LCW decision . Advice suggests arguments can apparently be made that the DWP should not decide these claims , they should stockpile them until a LCW decision is made but if this is so , who triggers the LCW assessment and how long does it take ? Is this a shot in the dark or are the DWP actually doing this ?
Further reading tells me that a claim for ‘New Style ESA’ should be made and again , if I understand the argument , this is for ‘Contribution-based ESA’ , the youngster will nothave paid any NINO contributions so will fail the NINO test BUT a LCW assessment has to be carried carried out regardless ... correct ? If yes , this brings us to the same place ie : how long does it take to get the LCW decision ?

Can anyone confirm or otherwise what the youngster should claim ?

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

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It was discussed at length here Sue UC for a ft disabled student

DWP approach seems patchy but claiming UC and submitting sick notes until WCA should be possible it appears. Doesn’t get over all of the other difficulties that you’ve highlighted of course and no guarantee that the UC claim will go smoothly necessarily.

SueLov
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Welfare rights officer - Cornwall Council

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Thanks Paul . Its grim though .