UC gateway couple split up

Please help me to think!!

Couple on UC under gateway conditions.

One partner was transferred from IRESA (Support Group) when they got together and is on PIP.

They split up: Gateway rules say that the first of them to report the change has to make a new UC claim, whereas the other does not.

Would it be better - as they would be better off back on ESA -for the disabled claimant to be the one who reports the change, thus they must make a new claim, they no longer fit the Gateway and they go back to legacy benefits?

I think it depends where they are and whether their area is covered by the No 9 Order or the No 24 Order.

I was about to say:

For the first month after they split up, they are not required to satisfy the gateway conditions.  Any attempt to claim income-related ESA during that month will cause that benefit to be abolished.  Therefore their options appear to be:

- make a new UC claim immediately for seamless entitlement, but miss out on the higher rate of benefit you get on ESA with the SDP, or
- leave it a month until the gateway conditions once more apply and, over time, recoup what they have lost during the interval

This is what Articles 3(3)(d) and 4(2)(g)(iii) of the No 9 Order say, and I had lazily assumed that these would be replicated in, or imported into, subsequent commencement orders, especially the No 24 Order which covers all remaining areas where live service commenced from spring 2015 onwards.  But I cannot find anything in the No 24 Order that mimics Article 4(2)(g)(iii) of the No 9 Order, nor can I find anything that makes those provisions in the No 9 Order apply to the numbered districts governed by the No 24 Order.

By way of background, live service roll-out was initially expanded by adding postcodes to Schedule 1 to the No 9 Order, but by early 2015 DWP just thought “lets have one super-order from here on in, with phased roll-out on specified dates over the next year or so”.  And that is what they did - the No 24 Order.

In Articles 3 and 4 of the No 24 Order I can see how UC commences and ESA(ir) and JSA(ib) are abolished when any one of those benefits is claimed by someone who satisfies the gateway conditions.  What I cannot see is anything that abolishes ESA(ir)/JSA(ib) if claimed by an ex-UC couple claimant within a month of splitting up where that person would not satisfy the gateway, which seems to give them a choice.

Incidentally, if they need HB and/or Tax Credits as well, they have a problem because an ex-UC couple claimant cannot claim HB, IS or Tax Credits within a month of being on UC.

Does that make sense to anyone, and have I missed anything obvious?

The relevant area went ‘live’ in March 2015 - so does this mean that Commencement Order No. 9 is the relevant one?

Whose crazy idea was all of this?????

Gets worse ... just noticed there were a few other commencement orders with free-standing UC commencement and ESA/JSA abolition provisions before the No 24 Order (eg the No 17 Order).  Looks like the practice of adding postcodes to Schedule 1 to the No 9 Order didn’t last as long as I thought.

Well, that means (if I am right about the lacuna as regards abolishing ESA(ir) for ex-couple claimants) it is more lilely that your client could choose to reclaim ESA(ir)within a month ... but what they won’t be able to do is claim HB and/or Tax Credits alongside it to begin with, because Reg 6 of the UC Transitional Provisions Regs prevents those benefits from being claimed within a month of a UC couple splitting up.  HB and Tax Credits would have to follow a month later.

I am not 100% confident about this analysis though: anyone else have any thoughts as to whether post-No 9 live service commencement orders contain a lacuna allowing ESA(ir) or JSA(ib) to be claimed by claimants who would fail the UC gateway within a month of ceasing to be part of a UC couple?

I am once again indebted to a non-forum member who saw this and put me straight.  It isn’t good news for your client.

Parts of the No. 9 Order were postcode-specific and only affect the early UC live service areas.  Despite the impression given by the notes in Schedule 1 to the No. 9 Order, expansion of live service did not in fact work by adding new postcodes to the Schedule: right from the earliest expansion each new area had a free-standing commencement order which duplicated the main bits of the No. 9 Order:

- UC exists as soon as it is claimed by a person satisfying the gateway conditions
- JSA(ib) and ESA(ir) are abolished as soon as they or UC are claimed by a person satisfying the gateway conditions

But other bits of the No. 9 Order were not postcode specific and so they remain as the “master” provisions for certain events including, unfortunately for your client, the one-month bar on reclaiming ESA(ir) after belonging to a UC couple.  So I think she has the choices set out in my original post: do without for a month and then claim the higher rate of ESA(ir) with SDP and EDP included, or reclaim UC immediately at the lower rate (no SDP/EDP, but higher LCWRA component partly making up for it).

Thanks for this. I’ll take this on board and….probably get angry at what a ******* mess UC is. But that’s normal…