Backdating ESA and relevant NI years

If somebody claims ESA in the first week of 2021 the relevant NI years are 2018-19 and 2019-20.

If they seek to backdate the claim start date to the first week of October does this also shift the NI years back to 2017-18 and 2018-19 or do the relevant years remain 2018-19 and 2019-20 based on the date the claim is being made?

The relevant benefit year is determined based on the start of the period of LCW, which in your scenario is October 2020 - so its the 2020 benefit year and the 17/18 and 18/19 tax years.

If the claimant would fail either of the contributions conditions by using the 2020 benefit year, but would meet them if 2021 were used instead, then the relevant benefit year would be modified to 2021 so that an entitlement can arise (i.e. the claimant gets to hedge their bets across both benefit years)

See DMG 41024-7 for some further explanation of this and the relevant authorities.

Thanks Elliott. Couldn’t think where to look when I posted.

Have I understood this correctly then (got brain fog!)

Claimant meets NI conditions for 2018-19 and 2019-20 but not 2017-18.

If they claim ESA now the claim will be refused because of not meeting 2017-18 condition.

If they claim in January 2020 for a claim starting then the claim will succeed based on 2018-19 and 2019-20.

If they claim in January 2020 but seek to backdate the claim to October the claim would normally fail because of 2017-18 but the rules allow for the relevant benefit year to be modified so that 2017-18 can be disregarded and 2019-20 used instead. The claim is therefore accepted and this can include the backdated period. This means that a claimant in this situation can delay claiming until January without suffering any benefit loss as a result, although obviously benefit will be delayed.

Just except for the last sentence. If the period of LCW is dropped back to 2021, then that also means that this is when the entitlement would begin.

If its a dead cert that there would be no entitlement using 17/18 and 18/19, your client might as well wait until the start of BY 2021 to claim and not bother with backdating. If there’s any ambiguity to it, then your client could protect their position by either (a) claiming now and then, if refused, reclaiming in BY 2021 or (b) claiming at the start of BY 2021 and requesting backdating - either of these options would mean that they would get paid from October if they had an entitlement on 17/18 and 18/19 but failing that they would get paid from January 2021 using 18/19 and 19/20.

Thanks Elliott. That is all logical and what I initially expected but for some reason was having trouble getting my head round it even after reading the guidance you directed me to. Enjoy your Sunday.