Contributory ESA and UC

Today was the first time I’d come across a client getting contributory ESA. Trouble is, he was married, his first ever claim (at age 62) and DWP were just paying him his £73.10 contrib ESA. No other income, no savings.

I helped him do a man recon, but am now wondering if the recourse should have been to claim UC and have his ESA taken into account. Either way, he’s been badly let down by DWP…

Almost certainly UC would be the only way to get means tested top-up, but not necessarily: if he claimed ESA before his postcode got full service then it is old-style ESA which can be reassessed to include income-related top-up without touching UC.

Thanks for that - we’ve been full service since June last year and the claim was made in February. Just didn’t make the connection. And I still can’t believe the DWP didn’t either. Will have to call him back to go through a UC claim. Which will be fun, as he’s proud of never having used a computer, or even a mobile…

Second thoughts, wife could claim, as more IT literate. Heigh ho…