Six DWP benefits set to end in the coming months - How to still get your payments
Six legacy benefits for Brits of working age are set to end in the coming months as they’re absorbed into the Universal Credit (UC) offerings. However, this move won’t happen automatically and they’ll need to take swift action if they want to avoid disruptions in their payments from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
The six means-tested benefits include Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). It’s currently impossible to make a new claim for these benefits in most circumstances and claimants will be receiving Migration Notices to help them move over to UC if they’re eligible.
There has been two types of migration; voluntary with those on legacy benefits choosing when to move over and managed migration which started last April and falls into the DWP’s official timeline. Stats from last November showed 5.36 million household were on UC while 1.66 million were left o legacy benefits.
440,000 households are expected to have received their mandatory migration notices by the end of this month. When you receive this notice, it will detail what legacy benefit awards you get are set to end and when. The DWP wanted claimants not to act until they receive this letter although they can use online benefits calculators to check how much UC they are eligible for.
It will also give you a deadline for claiming UC and steps to follow for this. You will usually need to make a claim within three months of the migration notice unless you have a good reason for missing this deadline. The DWP will also highlight what support and help is available to you during this process as well as reminder letters when the deadline nears.
You have a month of leeway once the deadline passes where you can still get transitional protection. When you make a claim for UC, your entitlement to legacy benefits ends on that day, or the day before your deadline if you fail to claim UC. JSA, ESA, Income Support and Housing Benefit will still be paid two weeks after your entitlement ends.
Transitional protection is essentially a top-up for people who would be receiving less on UC than they did for legacy benefits, an estimated 35% of claimants. The top-up will ensure their payments don’t dip when they migrate to the new benefit and will gradually erode over time if your UC award or household circumstances change.
When the migration to UC originally started it was intended for all legacy benefits claimants to be moved over in a staged approach by the end of this year, which was briefly extended in 2025. Earlier this year the DWP shared an update on this timeline revealing that the final recipients will be moved over by 2028 when only 600,000 ESA and Housing Benefit claimants will be left on the legacy system.
However, this autumn all legacy benefit claimants should start receiving their migration notices. People claiming Tax Credits started receiving these notes last March while Income Support, ESA and those being asked to move from Tax Credits to Pension Credits began being issued earlier this year.