Neil Couling has admitted in a tweet that the DWP is sometimes illegally requiring managed migration claimants to produce fit notes and even agree to work commitments, but claims a fix is on the way.
The problem affects employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants who are being forced onto universal credit (UC) via managed migration.
ESA claimants should not be required to provide fit notes when they are migrated and ESA claimants in the support group should not be required to undertake any work-related activities. This is because an ESA claimant’s work capability status travels with them when they are migrated.
Yet some DWP staff are forcing ESA claimants to try to get a fit note from their GP.
This is in spite of the fact that the UC claim form specifically tells ESA claimants:
“You told us you are currently getting Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
“This means you do not have to provide a fit note to tell us about your health condition.”
The DWP’s “Advice for Decision Makers” also confirms that if someone moves under managed migration, their work capability assessment decision under ESA moves with them.
And the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 confirm that ESA claimants take their work capability status with them.
But examples of DWP staff being utterly ignorant of the law are appearing even at this early stage of managed migration.
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) have said that through accompanying claimants making UC claims, they have discovered that Edinburgh’s High Riggs and Leith jobcentres “have been illegally trying to force such claimants to obtain a Fit Note from their GP and then go through a work capability assessment.”
Neil Couling, the head of the DWP’s UC team admitted on X on 16 October that the DWP are getting it wrong:
“We aren’t yet into big numbers but to reassure, we have an existing process to catch these cases, not perfect works for most, but you will see cases when doesn’t. Given volumes going up we are developing a tactical fix, to catch all, as I write, with a full system fix due later.”
The fact that the DWP need to create a software fix to prevent staff getting such a basic aspect of managed migration wrong, because they are incapable of training their staff to get it right, says a great deal about how unready the DWP are for “volumes going up”.
Meanwhile, anyone caught in this “test and learn” phase of managed migration is advised to make a note in their journal that, by law, they do not have to provide sick notes and also to state which group – limited capability for work or support group – they are in for ESA and that they must legally be migrated into the corresponding UC group.
