Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 34
34
Accepted
Delaying ESA migration costs 600,000 claimants £130 in monthly benefits until 2028.
Conclusion
The Department has estimated that 51% of ESA claimants, who are likely to include some of the more vulnerable claimants due to migrate to UC, would have been better off on UC by around £130 a month on average.69 In June 2022, it forecast that there were about 1.2 million people receiving ESA, of whom about 600,000 would have a higher entitlement on UC, about 100,000 would experience no change, and 500,000 would have a lower entitlement on UC and would need transitional protection to top up their payments.70 We asked whether this meant that some 600,000 claimants are losing their entitlement to extra benefit payments every month until 2028, and the Department confirmed this was the case. It highlighted that the savings arose from the fact that ESA claimants who would have been better off on UC would not now be transferred until 2028.71
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and acknowledges the need to bring forward the migration of the Employment and Support Allowance cohort from 2028 to 2024-25, citing a recent policy change to accelerate this process. The department will also monitor the effectiveness of enhanced support for ESA claimants moving to Universal Credit.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
7.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 7.2 The department acknowledges the need to be ready for migration of the Employment and Support Allowance cohort in 2024-25 as opposed to 2028. This is in-light of the recent policy change to bring the migration of the Employment and Support Allowance cohort forward and deliver this element as part of the current Universal Credit Programme. 7.3 The department has existing learnings from the Discovery phases run in 2022 and 2023 which included claimants on Employment and Support Allowance. There are further plans to build upon this by capturing how effective the enhanced support journey is at supporting claimants on Employment and Support Allowance to Move to Universal Credit. 7.4 This monitoring will include, but is not limited to, claim rates and channel, time to claim and additional support needed. Initial findings based on Employment and Support Allowance claimants with Tax Credits will be emerging this calendar year, 2024.