Britain-wide “managed migration” to Universal Credit roll-out to start in June 2023

3 mins read

Friday 28 April 2023

The national roll-out of managed migration – the process of replacing legacy benefits with Universal Credit for existing claimants – will extend to the Greater Manchester, East Yorkshire and Humber areas from June 2023, before expanding to the rest of the country.

Roll-out initially to “tax credits-only” claimants

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed at a recent stakeholder meeting that the latest roll-out will apply only to people in these areas who are “tax credits-only” claimants. This means people who are getting tax credits, but who do not receive any other legacy benefits.

The DWP had already announced that tax credits-only claimants in Avon, Somerset and Gloucester would have to migrate to Universal Credit from April. Tax credits-only claimants in East London and Cheshire followed suit in May.

Britain-wide roll-out to within the year

Following the latest roll-out in June, the DWP intends to eventually roll out managed migration to tax credits-only claimants in all other parts of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) this year. There is no precise timetable for this, thought the DWP plans to migrate tax credits-only claimants onto Universal Credit:

  • In every DWP region by September 2023.
  • In every jobcentre in Great Britain by the end of March 2024.

And in 2024/25, managed migration will roll out nationally to claimants on:

  • Income Support, income-based Job Seeker’s Allowance and Housing Benefit, including where paid alongside tax credits.
  • Tax credits alongside income-related Employment and Support Allowance.

People who receive only income-related Employment and Support Allowance, and no other legacy benefits, won’t be migrated onto Universal Credit until 2028.

It is important to note that despite the name, managed migration does not mean you will be moved onto Universal Credit automatically. Instead, you will have to make a claim.

Other pilot areas

The newly-announced national roll-out to tax credits-only claimants — and, eventually, claimants of other legacy benefits — runs alongside the introduction of managed migration in a small number of pilot areas that started in May 2022.

In these pilot areas, claimants of all legacy benefits are moving onto Universal Credit. The government has not announced plans to add more pilot areas to the existing areas, which are:

  • Bolton.
  • Medway.
  • Hexham and Berwick in Northumberland.
  • Harrow in London.
  • A number of job centres in Cornwall.

Your questions answered

To help you understand the roll-out and how it might affect you, we’ve tried to anticipate some questions you might have.

We corrected this article on Friday 5 May 2023. The roll-out of managed migration to the areas of Avon, Somerset and Gloucester, East London and Cheshire is to tax credits-only claimants and not to claimants of all legacy benefits, as we published initially.

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