Hi. I am currently claiming income based ESA for myself and my partner. I am in the Support Group. We live in an area which moved over to UC for new claims last November. There are a couple of things I can't seem to get clear. The first is, when we are eventually moved onto UC, will we be subject to that dreaded 6 week wait for money? And the second thing - I went for my assessment last year, after which i was placed in the Support Group, and I am expecting to have to go trough the same thing sometime this year. My question is, as our area has since switched to UC, would the new assessment process trigger the move from ESA to UC? Thanks.
There are currently no details of how the DWP intend to migrate ESA claimants to Universal Credit, so it's not possible to say what delays in payments that people should expect, however, UC is paid monthly rather than every the two weeks as ESA(IR) is so I think you should expect some gap in payments.
A reassessment will not result in an early transfer to UC, this will only happen if you need to make a new claim for another benefit that comes under the UC umbrella, Housing Benefit for example.
Gordon
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