ESA support group rates of payment

Hi Michael

You say that the £12,000 you had in savings has dwindled due to financial commitments. Dont quote me on this but if they are below £6,000 and you can prove it with bank statements etc then you may be able to apply for income based ESA so that you would possibly get help with housing benefits and council tax. When my advisor at one of my WFI saw that i was on the wrong ESA benefit it was all dealt with and changed over the telephone without additional forms to fill out so its well worth a try. Just on a positive note it did benefit me having WFI as this was resolved immediately by my eagle eyed advisor. CAB may be able to advise you further as i know how quickly savings go. I was off sick and on ssp for 6 months prior to me applying for ESA and what savings i had at that time which would be approx £14,000 was used on mortgage, council tax and general bills that we all have, but because it was under the £6,000 and i could prove via statements that i had not just blown my savings i was able to qualify for income based. So please get advice on this one. As you are in WRAG it would be well worth speaking to JCP. Hope this helps, keep your chin up and good luck, please let us know how you get on with this.

Best wishes
Julie

Im in the work focused not the support group part of ESA and i get the basic £64 plus the £25 a week to live on. When i was in the support group i had an extra £30 plus £13 disablity entitlment.

Hi Michael

I don't know if my Housing Benefit knowledge is out of date, but it used to be the case that (assuming you are on a qualifying benefit), if you have savings of less than £6,000 you qualify for the full amount. For every £250 you have above £6,000 you lose £1 of benefit per week. And if you have savings of more than £14,500 you do not qualify at all.

So for example, if you had £10,000 in savings your HB would be reduced by £16 per week but you would still get the rest.

I think Income Based ESA may work on a similar principle, and if you qualify for IB ESA you may qualify for HB. Perhaps as Julie suggested, you should get independent advice over this complex matter.

I've always felt it is wrong that people should have to live of their savings until they dwindle before getting benefit (unless they are really well off); while someone who earned the same amount and blew it all would qualify the moment they were unable to work.

Best wishes

Derek

My awards letter says i receive Cont and IB ESA? I am confused now!

I get the severe disability premium of ESA too, is that the same as SDA? I have been asked if i receive SDA on medical priority form from Council.

Can anyone post all current ESA awards/Premiums?


Thanks, Ranald.

Hi CD,
You don't need to apologise for any late reply to a query. There are so many posts that you guys need to go through before of loading them. And in my case I requested you to shed light on only if you had the time. In this light I, therefore, consider your reply very prompt.
To the point, I would like to thank you for taking your time explaining why my wkly total is as such. Through Julie's reply I had already seen reason for the difference. She gets DLA HRC and that entitles her to get SDP. In other words, my guess wasn't wrong after reading your post. And with that I say thank you once again for taking your precious time explaining the ambiguity that existed with me not with DWP.

Michael.

Hi Julie,
I do appreciate your value piece of advice about seeking further advice from the CAB's staff. For the time being I would like to leave things as they are. More so when it became difficult paying my rent in Feb. last year, I moved to live with a friend and am still living with him. So rent and CT are covered by him.
At the moment am waiting for my operations: r/knee and lowe back. And also trying to see how far my hypertension and hypotension can be brought under control so that I can get back my PCV Licence from Swansea. And if all goes well then I should be back working within 6 months. I am fed up with constant reminder from Con-Dem Govt. that many of us (sick/disabled pple) are workshy. Sorry for the rant.

Michael.