FYI: ESA Back Payments - Administrative error or errors!

General health and lifestyle
1

Hi all,

I’m not complaining as such, but if you’ve had a back payment when you were changed over to the correct ESA type from Incapacity Benefit, would you think that was it?

Back last July the DWP gave me a back-dated payment of £6,600, this was after my Contribution-based ESA in the Support Group was changed to Income-related ESA in the Support Group.

So, after all the years of struggling with bills, my ESA was finally adjusted correctly. When I phoned them during the review, I was told that it had been worked out but was awaiting a final examination that the figure they were about to pay me was correct, with no errors in the future.

Well, on the 27th of July 2018, all back-dated money was paid in to my bank account and I received 3 letters from the DWP explaining in detail all the changes that had gone on since 2013.

After this was all done, I assumed everything was all okay with my ESA payments.

Well, I got my ESA paid normally last week, and I normally check my bank account everyday, for bills being paid, etc, however, yesterday I did not check because according to my calculations everything was up-to-date, or so I thought!

Anyway, I received a brown envelope from the DWP Belfast which I left to last because I did not think it was anything important. I have to go through all thee rubbish mail from the real letters, etc. Anyway, I got to the last envelope and opened it, thinking it was about some small increase or the £10 Christmas Bonus - however, I was totally ‘gob-smacked’ when I read it.
It seemed the payment of back-dated ESA I received last year was incorrect, which they had previously told me was correct. They admitted they had underpaid me by another £1,400, and sent me all the revised paperwork again.

I did not expect this to happen twice, once yes, that is understandable, but twice to the same benefit! I have never heard of this happening to anyone else, so whether it was just my case or there are more people that are owed more than the DWP originally paid them in back-payments I do not know.

Of course this has affected my weekly ESA payments again, since I am now receiving more money. According to the DWP the underpayment was caused by an issue between 2013-2014, which remained unpaid even after the first review last year.

It makes you wonder how many more people have been underpaid by this issue - initially when I phoned the DWP asking them about any back-payments I was told “There was none in my case!”… - so initially I thought I was not entitled to anything!

2

Hi Steve,

Hope you’re well?

Those dates there make me wonder because when the underpayments were first announced back last year the dates they were backdating to were November 2014 and no further.

A few months later there was another announcement that they were going one step further and backdating to November 2011. I’m wondering if what they’ve done here is just backdated your money to the start of your ESA claim, which does seem logical to me. There are people who only received backdated money to November 2014 so they will owe them even more money.

What does confuse me though is you say that you’re now receiving even more money each week? Is this because you’re claiming the SDP which you weren’t previously?

Income related ESA Support Group is £127.55 per week. Add on the severe disability premium and you have a total amount of £193.40 (both amounts are single person claims) Don’t forget the yearly increase that happened on 8th April which would have slightly increased your money anyway but only a very small increase lol. Other than this i don’t know why you’re now receiving even more weekly money.

3

Hi Denise,

I’m not too bad thanks. Still on 40+ tablets a day, 8 Botox injections every 10 weeks and problems swallowing food. It used to bother me when I was forever chocking on food or drinks, not alcohol…lol.

I just re-read the letter I got from the DWP and it states the following:

We recently told you that you would get Income-related ESA from 21 October 2014 to 10 July 2018.

A payment of £6600.00 was paid to you on 27 July 2018.

Following a recent review, we can pay you more income related ESA.

This is the money we owe you from 18 December 2013, when you were moved to income-related ESA from Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disability Allowance up to 20 October 2014.

What this means for you

This mean we owe you £1396.00 from 18 December 2013 to 20 October 2014.

This was paid into your usual account on 29 April 2019.

There is more, but it’s about the amounts worked out over the years.

As regards to the amount of ESA, I get paid nearly £300.00 every 2 weeks and my wife recieves Carers Allowance of £66 something a week. I don’t claim SDA, I think that is for people that live on their own. My wife cares for me 24/7, as well as my two youngest kids (well, not so young now!).

I don’t have the exact amounts at hand. I’ll have to get them out and see what I actually receive per week. I get lost in all the DWP money breakdown letters. lol

I am still on DLA, even though I get letters every year saying about PIP will be coming soon. Last time I worried about our Motability car, don’t know why I’m still on DLA.
I rely on the car, and wheelchair - I cannot even steer a standard wheelchair due to the rare nerve condition I have, but I have lived with it since my early twenties - back then there was only 7 known cases in the UK, now there is over 200,000… a big jump over the decades.

4

That’s a lot of medication to deal with!

Yes, it’s exactly what i thought it was. It’s because they owed you money right from when you first transferred to ESA from IB way back in 2013. When they assessed you last you for the underpayment they only assessed you from November 2014. It’s the addition of the dates between 2013-2014 that they owed you. The amounts you received are disregarded for savings for the life of your ESA claim for means tested benefits because the amount was more than £5,000 because it was an offical DWP error.

Your ESA amount is couples amount which comes to just under £300 every 2 weeks, which is correct. In addition to this your wife is paid the carers allowance each week.

Your DLA to PIP transfer will eventually happen but like everything else with DWP they are massively behind and there’s lots of other people that are still waiting to be invited. People are being invited all the time but i have no idea what the time scale of that is. Of course your DLA will continue until you’re assessed for PIP.

In the meantime enjoy that extra lump sum you received and take is easy!

If you need help when you do transfer to PIP just give me a shout and i’ll gladly give you some advice. Or just send me a PM and i’ll advise through that.

5

It is a lot of medication, I cannot even use a standard medication dispenser from our own pharmacy any more, because the intervals are separated into 7 times per day. Dispensers only do 4 times per day and my wife can’t even fit my tablets and oral medication in to one of them.
She had to do a course on one of my medications which was changed by my doctors. What we didn’t know was the medication that was prescribed by my doctor, was quired at the my pharmacy, because of the change. A paramedic that came out one evening noticed the container on the side, and asked where we had got it from, when we told him it was prescribed by our doctor, he said not even paramedics are allowed to administer that drug without attending a special course.

Well, that will teach me for not reading the letter properly. lol - When I was copying it into the message box on here I realized the year difference. I get lost with ESA amounts, they tend to vary from person to person. I have learned never to ‘assume’ something is correct, with the DWP that is very apt.

DLA, I cannot even remember when they even started dishing out PIP to begin with - it must be some years now! I hear all these horror stories about PIP and the DWP, at one point I had a ‘breakdown’ just thinking about it, that was how worried I got myself. I ended up on antidepressants for months.
Now, I do not think about it at all. It will come one day when I least expect it, and now I am not even bothered by it.

To be honest with you, I gave up the Mobility High Rate to get a car, which we change every 3 years. Being on the High Care Component, many people think it goes a long way. With me, it doesn’t - I have to pay for a 3 year service contract at £18 per month on our Clos-o-mat toilet, basically a bidet which was done through a disability grant because the cost was £3,100 for it to be installed. However, after the first year I had no option but to pay for the service contract, which at the time was only £15 a month. It is done on a 3-year contract because the price increases every 3 years.

A lot of the care component money goes on the amount of electric that many of my aids take. We pay on average over £100 per week on just the electric, the gas well that is always low.

At the start of this year for 6 weeks I had to see a nurse every other day, for dressing changes from a large abscess that was lanced in hospital.

It is nice to see you around on here - you are always answering questions, but like many others on here you are ill in one way or another. Do you ever get days where you just hate being sick? I think it sometimes, and then think there are people always worse off than me. In my life I have been close to death 3 times, only once from cancer, and twice from my intestines turning gangrene (basically dying from the inside-out!).

Life, hey it’s what you make of it! So, they say! :rofl::rofl::wink::wink::hospital::ambulance: