Due to longstanding mental health struggles, our client missed the deadline to migrate from income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) to Universal Credit (UC).
When they reached out to our service, their benefit income had plummeted, leaving them unable to cover basic living expenses and relying on a local food bank to survive. To make matters worse, their initial UC award failed to include essential entitlements. Despite having a long-established Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) status under ESA, UC did not apply it automatically. Instead, our client was incorrectly informed that they needed to undergo a new Work Capability Assessment. Our client was also missing out on the Severe Disability Premium transitional element.
Our Caseworker stepped in to correct the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) legal errors across three successive Mandatory Reconsiderations (MRs).
Our Caseworker successfully argued that our client’s LCWRA status should have automatically carried over from ESA to UC from day one, removing the requirement for a new assessment and securing their baseline health element.
We submitted a second MR to backdate our client’s UC claim by one month, accounting for how their mental health condition impacted their ability to manage the initial transition. Securing the backdated claim opened the legal path for our third MR, through which we successfully claimed the SDP transitional element they were owed.
After nine months of dedicated advocacy, the DWP fully revised its decisions. Our client is now receiving their full, correct UC entitlement, including both the LCWRA element and the SDP transitional element.
Well done to Kate, our Money & Mental Health Caseworker