Any one have experience of Direct Payments and ESA to UC migration

Will do and thanks again, Fio

Hi Fio,

I am in that situation. Direct Payment is not considered income and you do not need to notify the dwp or do anything. Technically the funds are not yours but belong to the local authority who have put you in charge of managing the payments for the staff hours and/or services you are purchasing for your care.

I queried this same issue years ago with a social worker and they said at the time that the dwp is aware of this system and they had not come across any of their clients having had any issues as a result of having one of these DP accounts. The financial department of DP or your social worker would write to the dwp to clarify the situation should any problem arise they said. Still I wouldn't mention it when migrating to UC to avoid confusion.
And yes most agencies don't seem to be aware of Direct Payments or Personal Budgets, unless you speak to a specialist disability organisation. All the best!

My son is in the same position and he is midway through his process of migrating right now. I did read up on various people's thoughts on what to advise him to do and the general consensus seemed to be to definitely not enter anything about this into the online form.

However it was felt by some that it should be pointed out in the Journal that you receive the payments in case it was queried later on and then you could prove that you had told them about it.

Thank you Mermaid, yes, i was also told to make a journal entry after the claim about this, I still feel like i'm doing something wrong because I have so little trust in the DWP but have been assured by a disability legal service that this is the way to do it. Fingers crossed!