Migration to ESA for IS claimants previously exempt from PCA

I had my first 2 clients in today with an ESA 50. Both of them had been exempt from PCA because of receipt of HRC DLA. Any ideas whether this is just coincidence, or are the OCA exempt claimants targetted to be migrated first?

Our JCP Partnership Liaison Officer (presenting a powerpoint on the ‘reassessment’ process) said that no one knows if there is any particular priority in the order of assessment. Anyone know any different?

We heard that PCA exempt claimants would be near the start and our local JC+ liaison people said they heard the opposite. Or possibly vice versa, it’s all become a bit of a blur. I would not be surprised if this group is up for reassessment early on though, just because you would hope JC+ would notice that there is likely to be sufficient evidence to show they have LCW and LCWRA. So they can make a quick decision to transfer them straight into the support group and the stats will look good. But if these claimants are getting ESA50s then maybe that’s not the case. 

We have a meeting with JC+ in a couple of weeks, will see what we can find out then, if anything. It doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact here yet…

My understanding is that reassessment is going to take place on a rolling basis of when people were last assessed. Those currently exempt are thus most likely to be assessed early, then by the anniversary of the last assessment. The original idea was to reassess at the date when they would have fallen due for assessment under the PCA, but the implementation is over a shorter period than the maximum used for the PCA so all reassessments are likely to be accelerated to a degree.

Like Rwills, have to say it’s all quiet on the western front down our way. Can’t believe it will stay that way though!

I had raised this as a question at a recent DWP conference, and was told that many of the PCA exemption could be migrated without the need for assessment, if they had conditions that were unlikely to improve, or if there were evidence such as a DLA re-award which could be used as evidence. Therefore it would be “desirable” to consider this group first as it was a swift change over, without the need for medical assessment.

Exempt claimants, where the prognosis was less clear and where there wasnt recent evidence created an “opportunity” to revisit previsiously exempt claims and check if the awards were correct by an ESA50 and probable medical assessment

It is likely that someone with a chronic but manageable condition would be found to only have LCW rather than LCWRA - thus there would be a cost saving, and a likely “opportunity” to revisit the DLA claims.

I think this would be the real reason to migrate these claimants first…. as savings would be greater.

CPAG’s Eddie Graham had to field a question about this on Money Box Live, 6 April 2011, and said of the conversion process that people who are already on incapacity benefit will have a date when they are next due to be assessed under the personal capability assessment, and they will then be assessed under the new test when they were due to go for their next medical. So basically if somebody is being sent for a medical every 6 months or every year or every 2 years, then on the date they’re next due to be assessed, that’s when they’ll be subject to the new sort of much tougher regime. Of course a lot of people on incapacity benefit are exempt from the PCA and may not have been sent for a medical for some time because they’ve got severe conditions. There’s no particular order to how DWP will allocate when they will be subject to conversion.

We had been advised by JC+ over the years that those exempt from the PCA would still be checked on every five years - many may have been found to still be incapable on ‘scrutiny’ without having to complete IB50’s or attend a PCA examination. Given decisions we have seen recently in previously PCA exempt cases - whether in practice JC+ were checking on exempt cases regulary may be a matter of doubt?

Like Dan, my first thought was that there will be a DLA review following the ESA medical.
I had another this week. His DLA was only increased to HRC level 2 years ago, because of deteriorating health.