Universal Credit Claimants Could Receive £5,000 Compensation from DWP—Full Details Inside. The Department of Work and Pension has announced that it will give claimants compensation of up to £5,000. Approximately 57,000 individuals may be entitled to this compensation. The compensation amount will be distributed to those people who were on specific disability benefits and transitioned from ‘legacy benefits’ to universal credit in recent years. If you’d like to know more about the topic Universal Credit Claimants Could Receive £5,000 Compensation from DWP, please keep reading the article.
Universal Credit Claimants Could Receive £5,000 Compensation from DWP
The Department of Work and Pension has declared that thousands of universal credit claimants may be entitled to receive substantial compensation after several major court battles. Around 57,000 people will get this payment. The payment amount will be distributed to those people who were on specific disability benefits and transitioned from ‘legacy benefits’ to universal credit in recent years. These claimants were found to have lost ‘severe disability premiums’ (SDP) in the move, with the DWP not doing sufficient to guarantee their incomes were protected.
Leigh Day had prior won in the High Court on behalf of claimants TP and AR, arguing that the loss of SDP and, in some cases, enhanced disability premium (EDP) on transfer from legacy benefits to UC was unlawful. Solicitor Ryan Bradshaw of Leigh Day brought a case for compensation on account of 275 of these claimants and the DWP has now settled. Each claimant will get up to £5,000.
Ryan Bradshaw said, “I am glad to have settled this claim on behalf of my clients. However, there are thousands of others who have not been in a position to bring a claim like this. They too will have experienced the loss of £180 a month after they were moved from legacy benefits to universal credit in the years before January 2019. They too will have suffered unnecessary stress.”
“A suitable scheme to compensate all the people who have endured discrimination at the hands of the DWP ought to be urgently put in place. The mistakes made here should never be repeated.” People who think they might have been affected by the move to Universal Credit should get independent help and advice from a non-profit organization such as Citizen Advice.
Leigh Day partner Ryan Bradshaw represented claimants across the past cases. Replying to the new information about the compenastion scheme, he said: “It is regrettable that six years since we won our first case regarding the removal of Disability Premiums under Universal Credit the DWP is still making severely disabled people wait for proper compensation.”
Explaining the settlement framework, Neil Couling informed the Work and Pensions Committee: “The Courts have decided on all of these, and we are not moving to implement the various judgments of the courts in those cases.” He added, “Because the courts decided that the transitional protection we were providing was not large enough, it needed to cover other elements.”
The senior civil servant outlined three groups of people who can expect a payment:
- People due an additional amount of transitional SDP element for 2020 onwards and who continue to receive universal credit.
- People due an additional amount for the period between 2018 and 2020 and who continue to receive universal credit.
- People due an additional amount from 2018 onwards who are no longer receiving universal credit.
One of Ryan’s clients is 39-year-old Philippa from Chesterfield. She spoke about her experience of losing DWP payments: “When you’re on benefits, you don’t feel secure. Every day you wait for the little brown envelope.”. ‘The compensation has meant the difference between being able to access prepared meals that are not nutritionally balanced enough.” “I know people on relatively good incomes who are still struggling with the cost of living.”
In the first group, there are around 35,000 who can likely expect their payments first. This is because Mr. Couling says their cases will be “easiest” to handle as payments can be made automatically using the digital system. He stated that the department must find a way to deal with the 15,000 in the second group and the 7,000 in the third, who all have “mixed clerical and digital records.”
The compensation scheme was confirmed in February after the DWP settled a case brought by Leigh Day on behalf of 275 claimants in the High Court. The department promised to resolve the matter, and each applicant received a damages award ranging from £200 to £3,000.