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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit migration  →  Thread

SDP Transitional protection payments

AlexJ
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Trafford Welfare Rights

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I’m sure people are aware of this:

https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/dwp-confirms-that-first-sdp-transitional-payment-has-been-issued-on-day

My question is, in practice, what should we be advising people who appear to be eligible for such payments? I spoke with a client today who moved from ESA, including the SDP, to UC in August of last year.  Is there a specific plan as to how people are going to get the payments issued?

In the first instance, should they just call the DWP and ask for the transitional payments to be issued?

Cheers

Alex

 

Stuart
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Yes, think contact is best first step to bring claimant ‘to the attention’ of DWP - since regulations include -

‘Where it comes to the attention of the Secretary of State ..... the Secretary of State must determine an additional amount of universal credit (“the transitional SDP amount”) which is to be payable ....’

(new reg 63 and Schedule 2 to the UC (TP) Regs inserted by SI.No.1152/2019).

Not seen any further DWP guidance on how this will work in practice yet though.

[ Edited: 29 Jul 2019 at 04:09 pm by Stuart ]
Gail Knight
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Welfare rights - Halton Council

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A response a customer received when asked regard their payment on their journal

We aim to pay SDP recipients as soon as possible
We have put in place a process to identify claimants who are potentially eligible for the transitional payments
This is not a straightforward process and will take time as we have to identify claimants and assess their eligibility.
I am sorry I cannot give you a specific date by which this will be done but we will contact you if we need any further information

After a call to the contact centre they were then told there is a special team who cannot be contacted

I advised claimant to ask to be referred to this team as she has identified herself she may be eligible we await further response

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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I expect it will be the same as with the PIP LEAP trawl in that the DWP will say that we don’t need to do anything and should just wait for them to pick up the cases,.

AlexJ
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Trafford Welfare Rights

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Thanks for the replies folks.

Alex

Jon (CANY)
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Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire

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Yes, we’ve been told that no one needs to take steps, there is a specialist team that will notify people.

Apparently, ongoing payments will be made at the end of each assessment period, separately to the UC award, and will not show on the UC statement.

Charles
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Interestingly, the “transitional SDP amount” is simply an additional amount of UC, and is not added to the maximum amount of UC which can then be reduced by the income taper. (Unlike the transitional element which is added to the maximum amount of UC.)

This should mean that even if the claimant starts getting income which is more than enough to reduce the rest of the UC award to nil, s/he should still continue to get the full amount of the transitional SDP amount. The ONLY way to lose it is if their capital exceeds £16,000, or they fail one of the basic conditions.

Jon Blackwell
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Charles - 30 July 2019 07:55 PM

Interestingly, the “transitional SDP amount” is simply an additional amount of UC, and is not added to the maximum amount of UC which can then be reduced by the income taper. (Unlike the transitional element which is added to the maximum amount of UC.)

This should mean that even if the claimant starts getting income which is more than enough to reduce the rest of the UC award to nil, s/he should still continue to get the full amount of the transitional SDP amount. The ONLY way to lose it is if their capital exceeds £16,000, or they fail one of the basic conditions.

I think arranging the transitional SDP amount this way could be a problem for CTR claimants.

If the transitional SDP amount is part of the UC award but not in the UC maximum amount then (in most CTR schemes) it will count as income but won’t be reflected in the CTR applicable amount.  So perhaps 20% of the benefit (or whatever the local taper is) could disappear as lost CTR.

(Although it the transitional SDP amount won’t be appearing on UC statements, perhaps LAs will simply be unaware of the extra UC.)

 

Charles
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That’s a good point. It’s made me realise as well that people who get the transitional capital disregard will usually now be able to claim CTR as well.

I had an interesting case recently with one council who provide the regular income disregards for UC claimants too, but hadn’t provided the £17.10 additional earnings disregard for a couple working 16 hours with children. I checked their scheme and it turned out they have kept the condition of having a family premium included in the applicable amount. This is a problem for UC claimants whose applicable amount is calculated differently. I asked them to reconsider the decision based on the fact that the clear intention of the scheme was to provide the disregard in this case, and they revised the award without us even having to appeal it.