Things to come

Cost of living – uprating

As announced in the Autumn Statement in November, in April benefits (and tax credits) are to be uprated in line with the September 2022 CPI inflation rate – ie, by 10.1 per cent. The benefit cap is also to rise accordingly.

But the increase is not quite across the board. Capital limits in means-tested benefits are set to remain unchanged. And the local housing allowance (LHA) is also not increased. Those who have already taken a look at the official proposed rates will also have noticed that the maximum amounts in the universal credit (UC) childcare element are also set not to rise in April.

Cost of living – additional payments

The three benefit-related cost of living additional payments (respectively, what was formerly called ‘low-income’ but now simply ‘cost of living’, ‘disability’ and ‘pensioner’), introduced in 2022, are to be repeated in 2023. Full details are not yet available, but the entitlement conditions and other features of the 2022 payments are not expected to change.

We do know that the low-income cost of living payment (paid over two instalments) will be increased from £650 (spread over two payments) in 2022 to £900 (spread over three payments) in 2023/24. The disability and pensioner payments are to remain at £150 and £300 respectively.

Regarding a timetable for the payments, early in the new year the DWP said:1

‘Exact payment windows will be announced closer to the time, but are spread across a longer period to ensure a consistent support offering throughout the year. They will be broadly as follows:

• £301 – first cost of living payment – during spring 2023
• £150 – disability payment – during summer 2023
• £300 – second cost of living payment – during autumn 2023
• £300 – pensioner payment – during winter 2023/4
• £299 – third cost of living payment – during spring 2024’

Managed migration to UC

The DWP-led transfer of current claimants of legacy benefits (including tax credits) to claims for UC is expected to widen during 2023 (especially the second half of the year, when rollout ‘to national scale’ is planned), although there remains no detailed timetable. The Autumn Statement included the announcement that the managed migration of employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants not in receipt of child tax credit will now not be until April 2028 – ie, considerably later than the date for the migration of other claimants being under way, which remains set for some point in 2024 (with an aim to ‘complete’ it according to the National Audit Office, for March 2025).2

CPAG contacted the DWP regarding the rules on the calculation of the transitional protection delivered by the transitional element in managed migration cases. Specifically, there seemed to be an issue about the calculation in ESA cases where the claimant is undertaking ‘permitted work’. By completely disregarding the earnings in the calculation of the ‘indicative UC amount’ (but not thereafter), the amount of the transitional protection is lower than, arguably at least, it should be. The DWP does not think there is a problem, however, telling CPAG: ‘Those with permitted earnings would not have a lower level of entitlement at the point they move to UC… All permitted earning cases going forward will correctly include permitted earnings to calculate notional UC for the calculations of the transitional element.’3 CPAG is seeking further clarification.

Conditionality

As was envisaged in Bulletin 290,4 in-work conditionality in UC is set to increase in 2023. A government policy paper of December 2022 confirmed the specific plans.5 CPAG is seeking further clarification.

The administrative earnings threshold (AET) (the earnings level below which claimants may still be required, by law, to undergo full conditionality including work search) has been increased from 30 January. The new earnings thresholds are £617 per month for an individual claimant, and £988 per month combined earnings for a couple, says the DWP.6 It is estimated that this change will bring a further 130,000 claimants into the ‘intensive work search’ regime, from the ‘light touch’ regime (17 per cent of light touch claimants).7

The ‘voluntary progression offer’ of more advice for claimants who are already earning above AET levels, but who want to do to more work or increase earnings, is to be expanded (says the policy paper) so as to be available in every job centre across Great Britain by the end of March 2023. In such cases, the advice is provided ‘on a voluntary basis.’

But the voluntary nature of that offer is to change from September. Affected claimants (over 600,000 of them) are those in the DWP ‘light touch’ conditionality regime – ie, those who are indeed earning above AET levels, who cannot by law be required to undertake work search, but can be required to participate in interviews and work preparation. They will be ‘required’ (says the policy paper) to meet with their work coach to increase their chances of working more or earning more. In such cases, the requirement is to ‘engage’ with the DWP ‘progression offer’.

Bereavement benefits

The government has long been a considering a remedy to the breach of human rights rules in widowed parent’s allowance and bereavement support payment, identified by the 2018 Northern Ireland decision in McLaughlin ([2018 UKSC 48) as endorsed (in Great Britain) by the decision in Jackson ([2020] EWHC 183 (Admin)).

The government has recently confirmed that, when published (possibly in April, but no guarantees), the relevant remedial order will allow entitlement for cohabiting couples where they were living together at time of death, with the change retrospective to 30 August 2018 – ie, the date of the Supreme Court decision in McLaughlin.8 It is expected that claimants whose partners died before the Order comes into force will have 12 months to claim, with lump sum arrears disregarded as capital, albeit only for 12 months (with no promises regarding the notional capital rule).

DWP ‘Conversational Platform’

The DWP is planning to launch a ‘Conversational Platform’, in which artificial intelligence that mimics human conversation will be used to take telephone calls from claimants. At time of writing, DWP was still testing the technology, but was planning to launch the platform in February or March. Initially it will be used for UC, but eventually it is planned to use it for all DWP benefits.

The DWP says that the platform has been tested on around 30,000 interactions and will reduce telephone call waiting times in 2023/24. The platform will deal with caller queries either by ‘deflection’, in which the caller is encouraged to look on their UC journal or on gov.uk pages for the solution they need, or by ‘differentiation’ in which words or phrases are identified to allow the caller to be routed to a real person. A caller who says that they want to speak to somebody will be routed to a real person (although it seems this may not be advised of this in the call). After two unsuccessful attempts at attempting to understand what the caller wants, the platform will route the call to a real person.