Over a quarter of all the households sent a universal credit (UC) mandatory migration notice up to May 2024 failed to make a claim and had their legacy benefits stopped, according to figures released by the DWP this week. There are concerns about the time lag between claims failing and the release of statistics.
According to the statistics, between July 2022 and May 2024:
Individuals
migration notices sent 1,044,096
number claimed UC 735,159
percentage claimed UC 70%
not claimed & legacy benefits closed 307,217
percentage not claimed and legacy benefits closed 29%
Households
migration notices sent 708,091
number claimed UC 516,108
percentage claimed UC 73%
not claimed & legacy benefits closed 190,727
percentage not claimed and legacy benefits closed 27%
The DWP stress that “the majority of migration notices had been sent to tax credit households whose likelihood of claiming UC and receiving transitional protection may be different from DWP legacy benefit customers.”
In other words, the percentage of ESA claims that fail may be different to the percentage of claims that have failed so far. The DWP are clearly implying that they may be lower, but the reality is that nobody knows because, if any research has been done, it has not been published.
And even ongoing statistics like these may fail to raise any alarms until far too late.
This is because a claim is only recorded as failed after allowing for a three month claim period and an additional month in which transitional protection would be considered if a claim was completed in this period. This means there is a four month time lag, plus the time needed to compile, check and publish the statistics.
According to the DWP, the majority of of ESA claimants will be transferred between the beginning of February 2025 and the end of November 2025.
But the first statistics may not be available until June or, more probably, July 2025. If they show a significant failure rate, by the time the DWP establish the cause and attempt to remedy it, it is likely that the migration will be virtually over.
It demonstrates, yet again, how unreasonable this headlong rush to migrate ESA claimants to UC really is.
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.
If you have begun or completed your mandatory migration, please share your experience with other readers here.
