1 week Ago By [email protected] (James Rodger, Matthew Senior)
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More info × Group 28 Thank you for subscribing! We have more newsletters Show Me No thanks, close See our Privacy Notice The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced its timeline for when millions could have their benefits stopped. The department said that 2.1 million people awaiting being migrated to Universal Credit will be dealt with this year and beyond.
Universal Credit is slowly replacing older legacy benefits, through a process called 'managed migration'. The benefits being replaced are Housing Benefit, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit and Income Support, reports BirminghamLive . The DWP said: "Universal Credit has been available in all parts of the UK since December 2018, for people who make new benefit claims, who claim because their circumstances change ('natural migration') or who choose to move from legacy benefits to Universal Credit ('voluntary migration').
"Eventually, all remaining legacy benefit claimants will be contacted by the DWP and told they must claim Universal Credit to continue to receive means-tested support (‘managed migration’). When this stage is complete, legacy benefits and tax credits for people of working age will cease to exist, and the full ‘caseload rollout’ of Universal Credit will be achieved. "The rollout timetable for Universal Credit has been pushed back repeatedly, although in April 2024 the government announced plans to accelerate managed migration.
The DWP now plans to contact all the remaining legacy benefit claimants by December 2025, moving people to Universal credit and closing legacy benefits by the end of March 2026." In 2024/25, the DWP contacted the remaining tax credit claimants (those also receiving other legacy benefits), and all claimants of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), and Housing Benefit. The department aimed to send migration notices to these households – around 440,000 in total – by September 2024, with all tax credit claims to be closed by March 2025.
The managed migration of around 800,000 claimants of income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) only, or incomed-related ESA and Housing Benefit, has been brought forward, having previously been delayed to 2028/29. The DWP began sending migration notices to these claimants in September 2024 and aims to notify all claimants in this cohort by December 2025. The DWP plans to move all legacy benefit claimants to UC by March 2026.
This aims to complete the UC rollout and close all legacy benefits by this date. Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.
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