THOUSANDS of people on Universal Credit should look for letters in the post next week – or they could risk losing cash.
It comes as the government plans to move all claimants on to Universal Credit by the end of March 2025, under a process known as managed migration.
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Thousands more households will be asked to switch to Universal Credit in October
Affected households will continue to receive the payments that they are entitled to once they’ve moved over to Universal Credit.
The process began in May last year and came after a successful pilot in July 2019.
Eligible households are being contacted via letters in the post which tell them how to make the move.
Once you receive a letter, you have three months to move across, or you could lose your existing benefits.
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This means that if you receive a letter in September, you’ll have until December to move over to Universal Credit.
If you fail to do this within the allotted time frame, you could lose your benefit payments.
A number of locations have already received notices and should have moved over to Universal Credit already.
But households on tax credits in the following three regions will be asked to claim Universal Credit this month:
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Southeast Wales
Central Scotland
Northern Ireland
The process will then expand to Southwest Scotland when letters will be posted from November.
Over two million people are still on old-style legacy benefits, but the government plans to move the majority of them onto Universal Credit by the end of 2024.
In most cases, individuals will be better off following a move from legacy benefits to Universal Credit.
But 300,000 could be worse off, and should not move until they are asked to so their payments are protected, or they could lose cash.
Where an individual’s Universal Credit payment is lower than their legacy benefits entitlement, they will usually be entitled to a top-up payment known as Transitional Protection.
This means that their Universal Credit entitlement will be the same as their legacy benefit entitlement at the point they move.
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