The DWP has encouraged people to act on a key letter going out to benefit claimants or you could get a home visit from officials. The move of people on legacy benefits onto Universal Credit is in its final stages, with the focus now on the most vulnerable claimants.
As part of the current stage, starting in September 2024 the DWP wrote to some 800,000 claimants on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) only, or on incomed-related ESA and Housing Benefit. The 'managed migration' notice letter ordinarily gives you three months to apply for Universal Credit, after which time your old benefits will stop - although the system is different if you are particularly vulnerable.
Neil Couling, senior reporting officer for Universal Credit, shared an update on the project with the Work and Pensions Committee. He said around 100,000 people have been moved over from ESA to Universal Credit, out of 900,000 people who need to move over. There are 9,600 people still on Income Support, many of whom have vulnerabilities, as well as about 3,000 claimants on Jobseeker's Allowance and 28,000 people left on tax credits.
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For those with vulnerabilities, there is an 'enhanced support journey' to help you move over to Universal Credit. Mr Couling explained: "If people do not respond to our migration notice and they're on ESA, we do not switch off their entitlement to ESA without attempting further contact.
"We send text messages where we have phone numbers, we contact other parties, social services and others, who may be in contact with the claimant. We check our old records if there are no routes in." The civil servant added that if none of these options work, officials may visit the person at their home.
He said: "If none of that works, we then offer a visit, and we try and visit the claimant. That we developed with the stakeholder groups, as they worked with us, they are happy with that approach." You can get help with applying for benefits from charitable groups such as .
If you want to have a home visit from the DWP to help with your benefit claim, you can get a referral for this from groups such as Citizens Advice or . You can also work out how much benefits you are entitled to using a benefits calculator, such as the one on the .
Mr Couling said one issue they have noticed with ESA claimants moving over is that people will sometimes apply for Universal Credit, but then not follow through and complete their claim when asked for further details.
Mr Couling said: "We're looking now at how do we support people in that initial assessment period to make sure that they don't drop out having made a claim, terminated their ESA and then don't go through to Universal Credit." He said that at present, about 95% of ESA claimants moving to Universal Credit are paid in full within a month of getting their application in.
People whose benefits will drop as a result of moving over are protected by a transitional protection, which tops up their payment to their previous amount. You can make a claim for Universal Credit within a month of your old benefits ending and you will still get the transitional protection.
Mr Couling said that in cases where the DWP can't calculate a person's transitional protection, they get a "part payment so they are not left without money". Claimants of ESA also get a two-week linking payment to cover the time during which they have claimed Universal Credit.
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The DWP hopes to move over all legacy benefit claimants to Universal Credit by March 2026, with all legacy benefits to close by this date. Mr Couling said there are much higher levels of people applying for Universal Credit by telephone in the ESA cohort, accounting for 15% of claims, as claimants among this group have less online access.
These are the six legacy benefits being replaced by Universal Credit:
