ESA contribution based and UC - Job centre told him that cannot get LCWRA

Hi, just took a call on our advice line from a client who receives ESA(CB).  He has moved and his daughter is moving in with him so he’s now needing to claim UC (no SDP).

He’s just had his appt at JCP who have told him that they are putting him in the LCW group while they get the papers from ESA.  His first work commitment appointment has been made for Friday and he’s been told to provide fit notes!  The JCP adviser checked the LCWRA transfer from ESA(CB) but after speaking to his manager came back and told the client that he was now in the LCW group!!

He is due a top up of his ESA(CB) by UC but how can they then ignore his LCWRA?

Advised him to call the helpline and to call me back…

What is the history of his ESA award? Was it made under the old-style rules or new-style rules?

If old-style, he should not have been claiming UC at all, unless he had to start claiming for housing costs (but possibly too late for that now).

Either way, you would normally be correct that LCWRA should carry through.

There is one possible niche exception: if he was originally assessed for an old-style ESA award, and subsequently claimed new-style ESA without a fresh assessment being made, then the LCWRA would carry through to the new-style ESA award, but not to the subsequent UC award.

Thanks Charles.  Old style rules and claiming for the child and housing element.  He has since called the UC helpline and asked why he wasn’t treated as having LCWRA and they put the phone down on him (he recorded the call).  He got confused with the appointments so thinks that he has a claimant commitment interview on Friday but its by telephone…

Whilst I can appreciate the desire to try and reverse engineer some logical explanation for what your client has been told, it seems more likely that this is the result of some half remembered training or misunderstanding of the situation.  I would suggest that your client waits to see what he actually gets in his first payment and whether LCWRA gets included once the case manager has actually looked at it. If not, then challenge it.

Yes, I’ve told him to do this.  Just trying to pre-empt any problems but he knows to wait on his appointment and to check his payment breakdown.