ESA

I receive contribution based ESA and am in the Support Group. I received a letter telling me that my benefit was being stopped as my pension which they know about now took me over a limit? Do contribution based and income related ESA overlap? Have phoned them and they say the decision is correct. Am panicked and don't really understand. Thanks for any help.

snowangel wrote: I receive contribution based ESA and am in the Support Group. I received a letter telling me that my benefit was being stopped as my pension which they know about now took me over a limit? Do contribution based and income related ESA overlap? Have phoned them and they say the decision is correct. Am panicked and don't really understand. Thanks for any help.

Hi sa,

Welcome to Benefits and Work

Contribution Based (CB) ESA and Income Related (IR) ESA do not "overlap" !

However, irrespective of which ESA "group" that you are in, (WRAG or SG) you can be paid :

CB ESA alone

IR ESA alone

or

CB ESA with IR ESA top-ups, e.g. someone who is entitled to payment of CB ESA (which will always take precedence) may also be entitled to IR ESA top ups on top of their CB ESA.

This could occur, if they were entitled to : ESA Premiums

To receive payment of IR ESA Premiums, not only must you fulfil the criteria laid down in the above FAQ, you must also pass the IR ESA means test with respect to capital, assets, savings, household income and any hours worked by a partner if you have one.

Asset rule for receipt of IR ESA

24 hour work rule for ESA(IR)

If you can't pass the IR ESA means test as above, you will not receive any IR ESA Premiums, even though you may fulfil the other qualifying criteria, as all ESA Premiums are paid as IR ESA.

So, you could be entitled to The Enhanced Disability Premium (EDP) for being in The SG, but you would not receive payment of it unless you can pass the IR ESA means test.

With regards to receipt of your Works Pension.(WP)

For CB ESA there is an £85/Week disregard rule where the first £85 of your WP is disregarded.

Any amount in excess of £85/Week is deducted from your weekly CB ESA entitlement at a rate of 50 pence in the pound (50%)

e.g. WP = £105/Week - £85 disregard = £20/Week excess. 50% of the excess = £10.

Therefore, in the above example, £10/Week would be deducted from your weekly CB ESA entitlement.

If your WP does not exceed £85/Week, then there should be no deductions from your CB ESA.

Further, if you were previously in receipt of Incapacity Benefit (IB) and your WP was disregarded then, it should still be disregarded when you were transferred to ESA.

The rules for IR ESA are different, your WP, disregarding the amount paid to you, would be classed as household income and deducted £ for £ from any IR ESA entitlement/payment that you may have.

So, paying heed to the above, you could have a WP of say £50/Week, and be in receipt of CB ESA with entitlement/payment of IR ESA top-ups.

Even though the £50/week WP would not result in any deductions from your CB ESA, (as it is less than £85/week) the £50/Week would be deducted £ for £ from any IR ESA payment/entitlement.

You need to ascertain whether or not any part of your ESA is IR ESA, if it is, any amount of WP will result in £ for £ deductions from the IR ESA.

If DWP are trying to say that they have overpaid you due to any of the scenarios above, and you can prove that you have previously made them aware of your WP payments, they should not be able to claw back any overpayments.

As an example, an over 25 year old in receipt of CB ESA alone in The SG would normally be paid :

£73.10/Week Personal Allowance
+
£36.20/Week Support Group Component Addtion.

= £109.30/Week in total.

If they were also entitled to payment of The EDP, they may also receive £15.75/Week on top of that.

From : Benefit Rates 2015/16

You may find that putting your details into these : Benefits Calculators. will help further.

The above is on the premise that no deductions are being made due to receipt of a WP.

You should now be armed with the correct information so that you can challenge DWP ESA if you think that what they are telling you is wrong.

Please keep us updated by replying to this topic.

bro58

Hi
Thanks for the reply.
Hopefully you can clarify a couple of points from your response

1) The £85 disregard rule you mention, is that what the DWP call it or does it have another name?
2) If I follow the example calculation then a WP of £145 would work out as £145-£85 disregard = £60 excess. 50% of which = £30 so using the other example you gave of a 25 year old receiving CB ESA and the support group component would then receive £109.30 per week less the £30 from the Disregard calculation = ££79.30. Is that right?

3) With CB ESA is there any other financial threshold other than the Diregard rule to consider as they are stopping ESA payment completely rather than applying the above sort of calculation.

4)Where historically the ESA payment has been contribution based are there any grounds for them changing it to IR.
Thanks in advance

Hi
I have been receiving CB ESA and every claim letter until this month has referred to Contribution Based ESA.
The letter I received last week states We cannot pay you Employment and Support Allowance from 10 Nov 2015. This implies they have stopped all of it.
We cannot pay you because of the amount of Occupational or Work Pension.

After giving a breakdown of figures the letter then states You are not entitled to income related Employment and Support Allowance because your income is more than the minimum the Government says you need to live on.
IR ESA has never been mentioned previously, all earlier correspondence states I was receiving CB ESA only.
Your point 4 stating I cannot be swapped from CB to IR is good to hear but it looks like this is what has happened.