[Taf]

The DWP have finally published regulations removing the work-related activity component of employment and support allowance (ESA) for new claims.

New ESA claimants in the work-related activity group who are aged 25 or over will receive only £73.10 a week. They will not receive the additional £29.05 component that current claimants receive.

Similar regulations apply to universal credit claimants who have limited capability for work.

Claimants who made a claim for ESA before 3 April, or who are deemed to have made a claim before that date, as well as claimants who are still waiting to be transferred from incapacity benefits to ESA, will not be affected.

Claimants who qualify for the support group are not affected by the changes.

...yet....

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/ne...017+newsletter

---------- Post added at 11:29 ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 ----------

Last month a tribunal of judges ruled that claimants with mental health conditions such as severe anxiety have a right to claim even the higher rate of PIP for help with going outdoors.

It was a decision that put an end to years of the DWP deliberately misinterpreting the law. It meant that many thousands of people with serious mental health conditions finally had a chance to gain a little bit more independence.

So the government acted with remarkable speed.

Bypassing the social security advisory committee, who are supposed to get the chance to comment on all changes to social security law, they published a statutory instrument that will reverse the judges’ decision.

In an effort to justify overturning the judges’ ruling, Tory policy supremo George Freeman mocked as “bizarre” the idea that claimants with mental health conditions should be eligible for PIP. Instead, he said, PIP should only be for “the really disabled people who need it.”

The changes will apply to all claims made from 16 March, 2017.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/ne...017+newsletter

---------- Post added at 11:30 ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 ----------

Sir Ernest Ryder, the Senior President of Tribunals, has confirmed that benefits claimants will be the Guinea pigs for changes to appeal tribunals due to begin in September 2017. From that date social security tribunals will move more and more online.

You can look forward to attempting to upload your personal data to the cloud, getting emails from tribunal clerks or judges which hopefully won’t disappear into your spam folder and to having a hearing – if you get one at all – via Skype or telephone.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/ne...017+newsletter