Employment and Support Allowance

Anyone wishing to claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) should go to the Gov.uk website.

Overview

Employment and Support Allowance is currently one of the largest working age benefits. ESA is for people with an illness or disability that affects their ability to work. They must be under state pension age, and not receiving jobseekers allowance, statutory sick or maternity pay. 

ESA was introduced on 27 October 2008, and replaced Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance for new claimants. It also replaced Income Support paid on incapacity grounds. The 'new style' ESA was introduced 7 December 2016. Further changes to the ESA benefit were made on 3 April 2017. 

Income-related ESA claims will be replaced by Universal Credit over time.

Summary

The number of Employment and Support Allowance claimants in the Lancashire-12 area rose steadily following the introduction of ESA in October 2008, peaking at 49,030 in August 2016. Peak numbers at the individual local authority level were reached between February 2015 and February 2017 in the Lancashire-14 area. The number of claimants have generally been reducing in most areas since their respective peaks, possibly due to some claimants being transferred onto Universal Credit.

In August 2018, there were 44,190 claimants of Employment and Support Allowance in the Lancashire-12 area. Preston (6,500), Burnley (4,270) and Wyre (4,180) had the greatest number of ESA claimants in the Lancashire-12 area. Ribble Valley (1,280) had the lowest total.

Blackpool (10,130) and Blackburn with Darwen (7,320) had the largest number of ESA claimants in the Lancashire-14 area, where the total was 61,630 claimants.

ESA claimants by health condition

49.1% of ESA claimants (21,700) were classified under the health condition of 'mental and behavioural disorders' in the Lancashire-12 area, compared with 50% in the Lancashire-14 area and 51% in Great Britain.

Yearly change in ESA claimants

Between August 2017 and August 2018, the number of ESA claimants fell by 4.7% (-2,230) in the Lancashire 12 area and 5.0% (-3,330) in the Lancashire-14 area. This was slightly lower than the Great Britain percentage fall of 5.7%. Lancaster saw the greatest numeric and percentage fall in claimants, (-580, -12.8%) in the Lancashire-12 area. Fylde (70, 2.9%) and Wyre (80, 2.0%) both saw small rises. Blackburn with Darwen (-1,020, -12.2%) recorded the largest yearly fall in the Lancashire-14 area.

ESA benefit mean weekly amounts (£s) 

Five local authority areas in the Lancashire-12 area, plus both Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool unitary authorities, had mean weekly ESA benefit amounts above the GB average of £124.32.

Blackburn with Darwen (£127.99) and Lancaster (£127.42) had the highest total mean ESA weekly amounts in the Lancashire-14 area in August 2018, slightly above the Great Britain value of £124.32. Ribble Valley had the lowest mean weekly amount at £112.36 in the area. Due to the new style ESA interaction with Universal Credit, some claimants may not get any payment through ESA, just credits. This applied to 6% of claims in the Lancashire-12 area and 5.7% in the Lancashire-14 area (GB =5.7%).

ESA benefit: total of weekly award amounts (£s)

ESA award amounts are based on three different contribution types and individual circumstances. This results in variations in the distribution of the number of ESA awards by contribution type, and the total value of ESA awards by contribution type in each area.

In August 2018, of those claimants who actually received ESA payments, the total amounted to approximately £5.455 million per week in the Lancashire-12 area and £7.673 million per week in the Lancashire-14 area.

Preston (£0.815 million), Burnley (£0.540 million), Wyre (£0.513 million) and Hyndburn (£0.507 million) received the greatest amounts of ESA award payments per week in the Lancashire-12 area in August 2018. However, Blackpool (£1,283 million) and Blackburn with Darwen (£0.936 million) received largest amounts of ESA award payments per week in the Lancashire-14 area. Please see section 6 of the full report (below) for further details.

Remaining claimants of Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance

In August 2018, there were still 1,080 claimants of Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance in the Lancashire-12 area and 1,400 in the Lancashire-14 area.

Dashboard

Quarterly data is released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and can be sourced via the DWP Stat-Xplore data download tool, or from the National Online Manpower Information System website (Nomisweb).

 

Page updated 27 March 2019 (revised 10 April 2019)