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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit migration  →  Thread

Student switching to UC from ESA

James Craig
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Welfare Adviser - Young Lives vs Cancer, Hammersmith & Fulham

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Joined: 2 August 2017

Student currently getting ESA (IR) and PIP DL. She recently started renting privately but is not getting HB. Client gets SDP and is in the support group, but ESA is around £40 per week after deductions to reflect her student finance.

Client’s course is ending quite soon, but because of her housing costs it seems to make sense for her to claim UC straight away rather than wait until her course ends. Two questions occur to me however:

1. She will be entitled to a transitional element of £120 under UC, I think, to reflect her loss of the SDP. If she makes her UC claim while she is a student, will her transitional element be lost when her UC increases in the near future by virtue of deductions for her student finance ending?

2. Presumably the two week run on payment of ESA she will get if she switches to UC will be at the net rate of £40 per week she currently gets as a result of deductions to reflect her student finance? So looking at this point on its own there would be an advantage in waiting until she stopped being a student to claim UC, as the ESA run on payments would be nearly £200 per week?

WillH
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Locum adviser - CPAG in Scotland

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James Craig - 09 April 2021 07:10 PM

Student currently getting ESA (IR) and PIP DL. She recently started renting privately but is not getting HB. Client gets SDP and is in the support group, but ESA is around £40 per week after deductions to reflect her student finance.

Client’s course is ending quite soon, but because of her housing costs it seems to make sense for her to claim UC straight away rather than wait until her course ends. Two questions occur to me however:

1. She will be entitled to a transitional element of £120 under UC, I think, to reflect her loss of the SDP. If she makes her UC claim while she is a student, will her transitional element be lost when her UC increases in the near future by virtue of deductions for her student finance ending?

2. Presumably the two week run on payment of ESA she will get if she switches to UC will be at the net rate of £40 per week she currently gets as a result of deductions to reflect her student finance? So looking at this point on its own there would be an advantage in waiting until she stopped being a student to claim UC, as the ESA run on payments would be nearly £200 per week?

Hi James - 1. transitional element reduces when your maximum UC increases, not when your UC increases because your income goes down, so that should be ok (see reg 55 UC(TP) Regs). If max UC increases after the first assessment period, then the transitional SDP goes down accordingly (eg if a rent increase meant her housing element went up)

2. Yes, you can’t get more in the ESA run-on than your entitlement would be anyway. But as UC also take student finance into account until the AP in which the course ends I would want to look at the difference between claiming now (given that she’ll get a housing element) & waiting until student finance will not affect the ESA award (the point at which student finance stops affecting ESA is likely to be slightly different cos of the way the 2 benefits work).

James Craig
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Welfare Adviser - Young Lives vs Cancer, Hammersmith & Fulham

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Total Posts: 113

Joined: 2 August 2017

Thanks very much Will.