The DWP has announced that it is ramping up the managed migration of employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants to universal credit (UC) over the next few months. The department aims to send out 63,000 migration notices every month from February 2025 until early December.
The targets were made public by DWP minister Stephen Timms, who said that since 2022 the DWP had notified 943,343 households that they must move to UC.
According to Timms there have been just 10 complaints about the process, with only 10 of those upheld.
Timms also revealed that the Citizens Advice Help To Claim service, will receive “up to a further £15m” to provide free and confidential advice to ESA claimants subject to the move.
The DWP are clearly confident that they can carry out the migration process to schedule. But the numbers involved will be very much greater than the department has dealt with before, up from an average of 36,000 a month to 63,000.
In addition, a significant proportion of ESA cases are likely to be more complex than those the DWP have dealt with so far. Many of the claimants may be more vulnerable because of their health conditions, less accustomed to dealing with the DWP because they have been ignored for years and some may also be unable to manage the default online claims process.
Moreover, it is clear that so far the DWP failed to sort out the basics of dealing with ESA claimants, such as ensuring that they are not required to provide fit notes and that work coaches understand that claimants in the support group must not be expected to agree to work-related commitments.
Readers can contact the free Help To Claim service here and members can download our 50 page guide to “Successful ESA to UC Managed Migration”, from the ESA/UC Guides page.
