Benefits and Pension

Hi can someone clarify something for me please. If you are on ESA contribution based does a £45 a week pension affect the amount of money you will get from the state? Will any lump sum you get affect your benefit? And I sort of remember there's a year (2001?) when if you were on IB before that date nothing you get has any bearing until 2020, what year was that? Many thanks

Old Man wrote: Hi can someone clarify something for me please. If you are on ESA contribution based does a £45 a week pension affect the amount of money you will get from the state? Will any lump sum you get affect your benefit? And I sort of remember there's a year (2001?) when if you were on IB before that date nothing you get has any bearing until 2020, what year was that? Many thanks

Hi OM,

If the Occupational Pension (OP) of £45/Week, is the only OP that you are in receipt of, and you are in receipt of Contribution Based (CB) ESA only, where no part of your ESA is Income Related, (IR) then it should not have any affect on your payments of CB ESA. (no deductions)

The OP disregard rule for CB ESA is only relevant if your OP (or a number of different OP's) exceeds £85/Week.

e.g. OP = £115/Week

Minus the £85/Week disregard = £30/Week excess.

%50 of the excess (£15) would then be deducted from your weekly payment of CB ESA.

So, if as you state you only receive £45/Week, the above is not relevant. However, you should still inform The DWP in writing that you are in receipt of an OP.

They will probably ask you to provide fresh information on your OP annually, to allow for any increases.

If any part of ESA is IR ESA all of any OP will be counted in the "means test" for entitlement to IR ESA.

Yes, there are circumstances where a claimant's OP will be disregarded if successfully transferred over to ESA, where they were previously disregarded on IB. (Transitional Protection)

Will my pension be disregarded under ESA?

As CB ESA is classed as "Taxable Income" and any OP would also be classed as the same, it is your duty to inform HMRC if you feel that your total "Taxable Income" exceeds your "Personal Allowance" (PA).

It would seem that again this would not affect you, as the current PA for a single person is circa £200/Week.

My IB was tax exempt; will it still be under ESA?

Again, if you are in receipt of CB ESA only, any amount of lump sum payment would not have any adverse effect on your CB ESA payments.

Obviously, a lump sum payment may have an effect on IR ESA entitlement :

Asset rule for ESA(IR)

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