Claimants who receive employment and support allowance (ESA) with child tax credits will receive mandatory migration notices to move to universal credit between July and September 2024, the DWP has announced.
The DWP will have issued half a million migration notices to tax credits only claimants by April 2024.
It will then move on to issuing migration notices to income support claimants in April to June 2024, ESA with child tax credits from July to September and JSA claimants in September. From April 2024 claimants who receive tax credits with housing benefit will also begin to be migrated, followed by housing benefit only claimants.
The news is concerning because, as we reported in November, almost one in seven claimants had their legacy benefits claims closed and did not complete a claim for UC, potentially losing hundreds of pounds a month, according to the DWP’s own statistics.
The DWP have offered no explanation for this, but claimants being unable to cope with the complexities of a UC claim seems to be a likely reason in many cases.
More worrying still, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) report that by the end of August 2023 a shocking 27% of legacy benefits claimants subject to managed migration had not claimed UC but had their legacy benefit claim terminated. This is a non-move rate of 27% for claimants who were previously receiving an average of £300 a month through tax credits.
CPAG say that their research shows that “claimants did not have the information they needed or wanted to understand how moving to UC would affect them. Such misinformation and misunderstanding are likely to be reasons some people are not moving to UC despite having a strong financial incentive to do so.”
You can read the full CPAG briefing here.
Members can download our 22 page guide to ESA to UC migration from the ESA & UC guides page. We will have a more detailed migration guide available in the Spring to help affected members prepare for migration notices arriving next Summer.
