ESA and Pension

I was recently migrated from IB (which I was on from 2009) to ESA (work related group. On appeal, I was moved into the support group. Earlier this year, I applied to my pension fund to have it paid to me early on the grounds of ill-health. This was agreed and I received a small lump sum and a small annual pension of £781.01 (paid monthly). I advised DWP of this change in circumstances and was required to send them certain documents which I duly did. After 2 weeks they claimed not to have received these, so I went to my local job centre and had them fax the documents to Belfast. When I called them I was told that they had received the documents this time and that a letter would be sent to me stating that the amount of my ESA would not be affected and that it had been reinstated. However, on receipt of the letter, I was alarmed to see that my ESA had been reduced by the amount of my pension (£15.01) per week. when I queried this, I was told that it was because I was on the income based ESA and not contribution based ESA (when it would be disregarded). The woman I spoke to said it was "too complicated to explain". As I contributed to NI for many years, I am at a loss to understand why I am not on the contribution based ESA. Is it worth writing to them? Can anyone help me?

Thanks

Trish[/b]

The first £85.00 per week of pension income is disregarded for ESA and then for every pound over this ESA is reduced by 50p in each pound. It is not disregarded for contribution based ESA. Hope this helps

Hello Gordon, surely if there is a monthly pension payment of £781.01 then there should be a reduction in ESA as its only pension income under £85.00 per week that is disregarded.

My apologies Gordon just re-read the original post and didn't notice it was an annual pension not monthly, my apologies once agaib.

Izzy1010 wrote:

Hello Gordon, surely if there is a monthly pension payment of £781.01 then there should be a reduction in ESA as its only pension income under £85.00 per week that is disregarded.

Hi Izzy,

If you have another look at the OP's post, you will see :

"This was agreed and I received a small lump sum and a small annual pension of £781.01 (paid monthly)"

bro58