Forum Home → Discussion → Work capability issues and ESA → Thread
New Style ESA and legacy benefits
Hi there, we are FSUC and have a couple where Mrs is currently in receipt of ESA (C) SG (recently awarded) and PIP EDL, Mr is claiming IS and CA, however, he has recently been awarded PIP DL and would qualify for NS ESA if he claims. We want to do the following:
1. Withdraw IS claim.
2. Complete ESA3 for Mrs so that IR ESA goes into payment.
3. Mrs claim CA.
4. Make NS ESA claim for Mr.
The question is…can he make a NS ESA claim safely without the household being forced down UC route?
If he receives conts benefit then they’ll be paid dbl SDP & dbl carers…so long as NS ESA doesn’t trigger UC. We don’t think it should but we’re wondering if anyone has done this in practice with no issues.
irESA for female partner should (?) be fairly straightforward since ESA is all one benefit hence the DWP having to pay out all those arrears of irESA (DJ v SSWP [2015] UKUT 0342 (AAC) etc., iirc).
I read this post in a hurry though so - what’s the advantage of the male partner being the claimant for the couple? Is it a support group thing? Or what am I missing after a long day on drop-in advice?
Hiya,
Yeah, we’re good regarding Mrs asking for her CESA to be reviewed to include irESA. No issues there.
The question is that Mr will have entitlement to NS ESA. We assume he can just claim this as it’s cont based and there will be no issues with the BDC…they won’t then advise them to claim UC because of the NS ESA claim when they come to calculate the irESA.
We don’t want to do anything that will jeopardise the legacy benefits. If claiming NS ESA would jeopardise the legacy (irESA & HB) then we’ll advise to withdraw his CA so that they get 2 x SDP and 1 x CP.
Thanks
New style ESA is a completely separate benefit from UC and does not require a claim for UC, an its only effect on legacy benefits is that it counts as income - as new style ESA is just contributory ESA. I can’t promise the jobcentre or others might advise a claim for UC as they give all sorts of dodgy advice but so long as you are clear to him that he shouldn’t he should be OK
Rather than creating a new post can I hijack this post to ask for thoughts on this info at gov.uk
“How to claim new style ESA ...
If you live in a Universal Credit full service area, you can claim new style ESA by calling:
Telephone: 0800 328 5644
If you don’t live in a Universal Credit full service area
If you don’t live in a Universal Credit full service area, you can claim new style ESA by calling: Telephone: 0800 328 9344.”
I understood that if the claimant does not live in a UCFS area that they CANNOT claim new style ESA, and would call 0800 055 6688 to claim C-ESA. What am I missing?
It’s aimed at people in live service UC areas - of which there are very few now - just the few that haven’t gone full service yet.
‘New style’ ESA
You can apply if you live in a Universal Credit full service area.
If you live anywhere else, you can only apply if one of the following is true:
- you are already claiming Universal Credit
- you claimed Universal Credit in the past 6 months and your payments ended because of your earnings
https://www.gov.uk/employment-support-allowance/types-of-esa
Great, thanks guys.