SSP and UC under Covid-19

Drawing up some blanket advice for our employment advisers, and just wanted to confirm if I’m looking at this right:

With the Covid UC/ESA regs, claimants now get LCW from day 1, meaning work allowance and SSP disregarded (in full pending other circs).

On the other hand, work allowance doesn’t apply to nsESA (i.e. when not eligible for SSP), which is counted in full as unearned income to reduce UC.

I would just point out that many (most?) claimants will lose their LCW on these grounds before the end of the first AP, and therefore won’t get a work allowance at all, due to the whole month approach of UC.

Others have said in the past that the work allowance is only given after the 3 month waiting period ends, but that has not been my experience.

I’m not so sure. For a lot of households different family members might become symptomatic at different times, and each onset would reasonably extend your self-isolation period by 14 days, per the current guidance, and depending on how the pandemic progresses, people might be advised to self-isolate for longer in any event.

I also tend to work under the assumption that most claimants will request an advance payment, which would be paid on their higher LCW amount before/if they lose the work allowance.

EDIT: But yes, I recognise your point.

I remember the threads on work allowance timing - did anyone ever find any actual legislation as to when its supposed to become effective?

I don’t think there is any specific legislation for this.

I now believe that where LCW was declared at the start of the claim, the decision can be revised to include a work allowance using Reg 5(1)(a) of the D&A Regs, as the SoS will have commenced action leading to the revision within one month.
Where the LCW was declared at a later date, I think the work allowance can be included from the AP in which the declaration was made using Reg 35(9)(b) (even if Reg 35(9)(a) is the operative provision for the inclusion of the LCWRA element).