Fiona received a form from Universal Credit advising her that she was required to complete it. She was unsure about how to complete the form and asked for help from Community Advice.

Upon reviewing her situation, our Adviser noted that Fiona had already completed an Employment Support Allowance (ESA) review form one month previously and as a result of her disability had been placed into the support group. This meant that she was registered with ESA prior to Universal Credit and should not have to complete the UC50 form. Our Adviser helped Fiona to write a note into her journal advising Universal Credit to obtain a JB23 from ESA and therefore carry the ESA decision over. 

Universal Credit initially refused this request, claiming that they were the initial referrer, which based on the timeline evidence our Adviser had established was incorrect. 

Not accepting this decision, our Adviser then helped Fiona to escalate the issue to a decision maker who, following an investigation, agreed that ESA were indeed the initial referrer, requested the JB23 form from ESA and advised Fiona that she did not need to complete the form. 

During our initial investigations, our Adviser also identified that Fiona was struggling to make up her rental shortfall and that she was not in receipt of Discretionary Housing Payment so we helped her to apply for this benefit. 

Fiona tells us that she is  extremely grateful for our Advisers persistence and cannot thank us enough for all our help to alleviate her stress, which was making her disability worse.  

NOTE: Names have been changed and the image used is not the actual person.