ESA permitted work vs 16 hours 'work related activities' on UC LCW

Hi, I have been moved from ESA WRAG to UC LCW.

I was doing 7 hours permitted work on ESA as self employed from home, including Saturdays and Sundays (to me all days are the same, and because of my chronic fatigue syndrome it's better if I spread activities through the entire week rather than doing more on certain days and nothing on others).

For UC LCW, the Claimant's Commitment states that I have to do 16 hours of work related activities.

I'll have my first jobcentre interview in about two weeks and am trying to clarify to myself why exactly I am going there and what I should tell the work coach. I've asked myself several questions, and see several problems:

-why should I do 16 hours of whatever now, compared to the 7 hours that I was doing before?

- I am willing to do what I was doing before: being self employed and working completely alone. People to me are an obstacle to avoid, because of my chronic fatigue. They expect me to speak as fast, walk as fast, breathe as fast, etc etc. I haven't been in a workplace since 1998, that's almost 30 years. The only work I have been doing since then is as sole trader and teaching music by creating online courses (I have no contact with students except when they ask questions through the message system etc). To me learning how to get a CV is useless, since this is for employers to see. My idea is to forgo the work related actitivies and just keep doing the work I can do and earn what I can, so for example to me it would mean creating more courses or more content for the existing courses; doing market research and find ways to sell more courses, but I am completely off the social media thing; I'd rather eat glass. I only advertize my courses; I have virtually no contact with 'social media'; basically, I create a course, I put previews, I explain exactly what the course offer, and the price, and a money back guarantee. I don't offer ongoing support, that would take too much work and effort.


- I have read somewhere that if I work 16 hours, it will be seen as a change of circumstance by the UC team and this will trigger a LCW assessment. In fact, I had a UC phone interview and I tried to explain for the umpteen time that I was doing permitted work on ESA, and the answer was: 'are you self employed' ,I wanted to say: 'Duh? I've just told you I teach music and I was doing permitted work' but refrained and just said yes, and the answer was: 'well then, we'll have to arrange a Jobcentre interview'.

Then, about a week later, the LCW was finally applied to my UC. But the interview that has been arranged wasn't changed or anything.

- my idea is that instead of 'work related activities', (which in my case are probably a waste of time since I have absolutely no intention to work with other people, but alone, and completely, at home, because I can pace myself),
I am better off just doing what I know I can do. I have already tried most things for the past 30 years, they never worked. But if I just work 16 hours, won't that trigger a reassessment? In other words, can 16 hours of work (let's assume I can do that, hypothetically, which is not necessarily going to be a reality), be seen 'work related activities'
for UC? Because if not, then I am better off disputing my Claimant's Commitment.


My personal judgement:

I should make the work coach focus on the fact that just because I am on UC now, nothing has really changed in my world. Only the external one has. That means, I see no reason why now suddenly I should do 16 hours of 'permitted work' instead of the 7 that I was doing. The guidelines for the Claimant's Commitment states that 'it should be tailored to the claimant's needs' but the UC team is basically behaving as if it doesn't matter what I was doing before. That doesn't seem as if anything is being tailored to the claimant's needs.

Also, if that will be seen as just work, then it might work against me and I'd lose the LCW....I don't need that at all.

Sorry about the very long message. I don't expect all my queries are answered, or from one person, but any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.

oh, thank you David! That's more reassuring! Hopefully I'll be able to find a way to make it work for me well enough, and keep my work coach happy.

My idea is to churn out more content for my existing online courses and create new ones. This would be something I can do as long as I am home and pace myself and don't do too much. Feel less scared now. Thanks again for the useful clarification!