Hi I have clients who are in reciept of severe disablement allowance qualifying some years ago on the basis that they had not paid enough NI conts..
Will this mean that when they are migrated to ESA in 2010 they will not qualify for the contributory element or will there be some form of protection for these people?. My client has a partner who excludes them from claiming means tested benefits because he works. So in effect if my client does not qualify for the contributory element then she will undoubtedly be one of the losers.

The WRA empowers the SoS to make regulations to provide for existing claimaints to be 'converted' on to ESA, (Schdule 4 para 7 WRA). None have so far been made. The act contain no assurances about rates of benefit etc for such transition.

Whilst its rare for Govts to simply take benefit of people who have already got it, I would not put anything past this crowd, given their previous worthless statements re the levels of ESA and ICB. The Govt's new found love of 'benefit simplification' may give it all the excuse it needs to avoid complicated 'legacy issues' and simply abolish a benefit like SDA completely.

However, the most likely scenario is that your client would get to keep the SDA, but the amount will be frozen, ie no further uprating.

Thanks for that. Will wait and see.