ESA/overlapping benefits

ive recently been considering the impact of changes that devolution of some benefits in scotland will have in this regard and wouldnt mind some opinions to try and get my head around it.

the scottish parliament will be taking over control of carers allowance and in the current draft bill their is a proposal for carers to be increased to the same level of JSA.  for practical reasons they will do this in the first instance by two 6 monthly lump sum payments. these will only be paid to those in receipt of carers allowance on two specific dates still to be specified.

This money will (or at least there is a commitment to) be disregarded in assessments for reserved benefits like income support/income related esa etc

now.

at present as we know conts based ESA and carers overlap.  this has generally been relatively simple as ESA is pretty much always the better option financially and the underlying gives access to the carers premium.  non payment also protects potential sdp entitlement elsewhere.

with the scottish changes though and cuts in payment to the wrag, its going to be the case that payment of carers is better for some carers in scotland as they will get more money.

longer term scotland will make its own regs in relation to payment of carers etc id imagine but in the meantime the cpag books says the conts benefit is given preference and then can be topped up with the balance of any non contributory benefit due…how does this happen in practice?  does the ESA top it up or is it carers?  ive never seen it in practice.

if its carers that is paid then this would give entitlement to the lump sum payments in scotland but could affect sdp’s.

example:

carers with an occ pen and conts based esa entitlement in wrag.  occ pen reduces ESA to below carers amount. in this instance carers coming into payment even if a top up would give access to the two lump sum payments from the scottish governemnt

anyone any other thoughts or opinions?