failure to pay transitional addition, error

It has come to our notice that a number of claimants who have undergone conversion from income support on the basis of incapacity to ESA, have not received the transitional addition to which they were entitled.

We were alerted to the problem by a client whose effective date of conversion occurred during the same week in which the annual benefit uprating took place.  When we raised the issue with JC+ they repeated the same argument several times:  the claimant only received IS for a part week as at date of conversion, so IS rate was less than her ESA payment.  It took a firmly worded letter and references to the ESA (Transitional Provisions, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit) (Existing Awards) (No. 2) Regulations 2010 regs 11 and 12(2), the commentary in Bonner et al, and their own Decision Makers Guide para 45642 to get them to concede their error.  The client is now receiving the transitional addition and has been paid arrears to 14 April.

However, it appears that many other claimants whose conversion took place that week also missed out on the transitional addition.  Colleagues may wish to check, in their own area, that TAs have been correctly paid to this group of claimants.