DWP delivers contemporary compensation particulars for hundreds of profit claimants – from eligibility to funds | EUROtoday

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has offered a brand new replace for the tens of hundreds of profit claimants due a compensation fee this 12 months.

Around 57,000 individuals will obtain funds, regarded as as massive as £5,000, with the division hoping to finish the scheme by August 2025.

The funds might be made to many who had been receiving sure incapacity advantages and moved from ‘legacy benefits’ to common credit score within the years earlier than applicable transitional protections had been launched. These claimants had been discovered to have misplaced ‘severe disability premiums’ (SDP) within the transfer, with the DWP not doing sufficient to make sure their incomes had been protected.

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The scheme follows two rulings by the High Court between 2018 and 2019, which discovered the federal government failed to make sure the profit funds of those claimants weren’t lowered after they transitioned. In 2020, the DWP made a failed try and problem these rulings on the Court of Appeal.

It was discovered that month-to-month lack of revenue in each circumstances amounted to round £180. Law agency Leigh Day – who introduced the circumstances – estimates that compensation might be price greater than £5,000 per particular person.

In February, DWP’s senior accountable proprietor for common credit score, Neil Couling, confirmed that the majority eligible claimants would obtain compensation earlier than the tip of the 12 months. The division has now launched much more element in regards to the scheme, together with exact eligibility and fee charges.

Eligibility

To be eligible for compensation, a claimant should be receiving (or had beforehand acquired) Universal Credit that features an SDP aspect or transitional quantity, or would have achieved had it not been eroded.

They should then have met certainly one of three extra situations instantly earlier than their transfer to Universal Credit:

Payment charges

There are 5 doable fee charges, which might be made for every month between the claimant’s transition to Universal Credit and when new revenue safety laws got here in pressure in February 2024. These again funds might be calculated by giving claimants what they’d have been entitled to had the brand new guidelines been in place after they transitioned.

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The month-to-month charges are:

When will I be paid?

When eligible claimants will obtain a fee relies on after they moved to Universal Credit, and whether or not they nonetheless do as we speak. Mr Couling outlined three teams of people that can anticipate a fee at differing instances:

The first group, he says, includes round 35,000 individuals who can anticipate their funds by August 2025, with over 4,000 already paid. This is as a result of they’re the “easiest” to deal with, as funds could be made routinely utilizing the digital system.

There are 15,000 within the second group, who can anticipate their funds to start by the tip of March. The later funds are on account of them changing from a handbook SDP fee to being paid by way of the common credit score system, making their circumstances “slightly more complex.” They also needs to all be paid by August 2025.

However, no deadline is given for the third group of round 7,000 prospects. These are individuals who acquired an SDP fee both manually or on-system, however have since seen their common credit score declare shut. Due to the “more complex” nature of their circumstances, “analysis is ongoing to determine the level of work required to enable payments to be made” to them, Mr Couling says.