Ill health retirement pension on IB

Janice wrote:

Hello
I am on long term IB for osteoporosis. Is it true that when I come to be transferred to ESA I will automatically not be entitled because I am on an ill health retirement pension from the NHS (I am aged 55)

thank you very much for your help

No, assuming you pass the ESA assessment you will receive Contribution Based ESA and will be placed into one of two groups dependant on how severe your disbilities are, the Support Group and the Work Related ACtivity Group.

When you are transferred your pension will be treated in the same way as it is now uner IB, this is called Transitional protection.

If you are placed in the WRAG then you your ESA(CB) will be limited to one year from the Effective Date of transfer, after which you will be eligible for Income Related ESA.

ESA(IR) is means tested and will take into account your pension as income, this may mean that you would not receive any payments, dependant on the amount of your pension.

If you need a definitive statement on how you would be affected you need to seek face to face advice from an advisor who can review all of your circumstances.

Hope this explains it.

Gordon

Walt

As I understand the changes the pension disregard applies to ESA(CB) only, not ESA(IR).

This is complicated so I'll do my best to explain it, based on my understanding of the legislation.

The ESA Transitional Regulations (2010) amend the ESA Regulations (2008) to allow the tranfer of IB claimants to ESA.

Specfically the Transitional Regulations amend clause 75 of the original act which covers what payments are excepted for Contrinution Based ESA. Basically it adds the same clauses that are present in the IB legislation, so that any pension disregards an IB claimant has under IB will be carried forward to ESA(CB).

The important point is that this section covers "Deductions from the contributory allowance", and not ESA in general, so I do not believe this amendment applies to Income Related ESA.

Now of course this legislation was written before there was any suggestion of time limiting ESA(CB), so it was necessary to include anything to cover ESA(IR).

The Welfare Reform Bill which will brings in this change does not reference the ESA Transitional Regulations as far as I can see, so I think we have to assume that it is the Governments intention the ESA(IR) will not be covered.

I doubt I've explained this is as clearly as it could be, but I hope you get the jist of what is going on.

Gordon