ESA Linking Rules & Prison - 

I have a tenant who has been in prison for a month.

Prior to being in prison client was on ESA and was awarded PIP at Tribunal.

ESA was stopped and client has now been advised to claim UC.

Due to the length of time served in prison, can a new ESA claim not be linked to their old claim?

Does she get housing benefit that includes a severe disability premium - if so then she could do a new claim for ir ESA.

If not then no new irESA claim is possible as everywhere is full service - she can only claim new style (contributory) ESA and/or UC

And if the HB was stopped then it can be re-instated as the absence did not exceed 13 weeks in Great Britain.

So client was sentenced on 15/03/2019 and released on 12/04/2019.

PIP tribunal was 20/03/2019 and they are now entitled from last year.

They had entitlement to claim SDP but it wont have been processed whilst they were in Prison.

Does it make a difference if they were entitled SDP it and wasn’t getting it? They still had an active legacy benefit (HB) so should still be able to claim ESA?

So long as they were and still are entitled to HB they should be OK. Probably best to contact HB first to get the sdp put in place - or at least start the process - and then put in the claim for ESA.

You don’t need to worry about backdating - so long as it is in place now that is enough to stop them being able to claim UC

Thank you Daphne!