esa support group

Hello,

Husband claiming ESA in The Support group, Contribution Based.

Wife claiming ESA in The Support group, Contribution Based.

What else if anything can we claim ?

Should we be claiming as a couple or as we are ?

We are both 61

Thanks.

Hi,

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bro58

Hi,

I see from your other duplicate post, that you and your wife are both in receipt of a "small works pension" as well as your Contribution Based (CB) ESA in the Support Group (SG) as individual claims.

The amount that you both receive from your Works Pensions (WP) may be an important factor in whether you are entitled to extra payments of Income Related (IR) ESA on top of your CB ESA payments.

Any WP payments are classed as household income for The IR ESA means test.

As you are both in The SG, you will have entitlement to The Enhanced Disability Premium (EDP) which is paid as IR : ESA Premiums.

However, even though you have an "Entitlement" to The EDP, to receive "Payment" of the EDP you need to pass the IR ESA means-test with respect to capital, assets, savings household income and any hours worked by a partner :

Asset rule for ESA(IR)

24 hour work rule for ESA(IR)

If you cannot pass the means test, even though you may have an "Entitlement" you will not receive "Payment".

Current Single and Couple rates for the EDP can be seen in this FAQ :

Benefit Rates 2015/16

You would have to request an ESA 3 financial assessment form from The DWP to see whether you have entitlement to payment of IR ESA Premium top-ups in addition to your CB ESA payments.

If you do qualify, all IR ESA for both of you would be paid on top of one of your CB ESA payments.

Have a look at some similar queries : Here, Here, Here and Here.

One last point with regards to your CB ESA SG payments, are you aware that there is an £85/Week disregard regard rule for WP payments ?

Wherein the first £85/Week of your WP payments are disregarded. (In your case this would be £85/Week each)

Any excess of the £85 is deducted at a rate of 50% in the pound from your weekly ESA payments.

e.g. WP = £105/Week = £20 in excess of the £85/Week disregard.

50% of the £20 excess = £10.

Therefore, in this example £10/Week would be deducted from your CB ESA.

To be clear, with respect to the IR ESA means test, all household income including both WP payments would be deducted £ for £ from your maximum IR ESA "Entitlement" if the WP payments exceed your IR ESA "Entitlement" when offset against them, they would cancel them out.

i.e. No "Payments" of IR ESA top-ups.


If you and your wife both suffer limitation with walking, going out, daily living and/or have care needs as a result of your medical conditions, you could both make individual claims for PIP.

If successful, there would be no adverse effect on your ESA payments, to the contrary it may increase them :

PIP Self Test

PIP Claims Guide. (2nd Link on page)

Please reply to this topic if you have any further queries and we will try our best to help within the remit of the forum.

bro58