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FOI request (FOIR-776142403)
Managed migration resulting in changes to council tax bills and social care costs
Requested Mon 22 December 2025
Responded Wed 21 January 2026Over recent years the government has been operating a program of managed migration which is seeing people being invited to migrate to Universal Credit (UC) or their current benefits will be terminated. The government has accelerated this process and according to the House of Commons library all income-relate Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants will receive their migration notices by Autumn 2025 and be moved by April 2026.
Reading comments on forums and groups some disabled people who have completed their move to UC from ESA are saying their council tax bills and/or social care charges have changed as a result, with most saying they have increased.
As a billing authority you will have been notified by the Department for Work and Pensions when an ESA claimant is migrated to UC. As a result you will have recalculated their council tax and any reduction they were getting. Therefore, I request the following information about this group:
How many ESA to UC claimants have you been notified about?
How many have seen their council tax bill increase?
How many have remained the same?
How many have decreased?
While not every claimant who migrated from ESA to UC will be getting social care, some will. Therefore please share the following information.
How many ESA to UC claimants are getting social care?
How many have seen their social care charges increase?
How many have remained the same?
How many have decreased?
As a disabled person it is easiest for me to read data in an excel format.
Response
NOTICE OF REFUSALThe information requested in respect of migration resulting in changes to council tax bills and social care costs would require us to manually review each managed migration case individually. We have identified between 1,300 and 1,400 cases that have undergone managed migration, to obtain this information would far exceed the time limit set out by the Information Commissioner therefore under S12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000 provides an exemption from the obligation to comply with a request for information if the estimated costs of complying with that request would exceed the prescribed appropriate limit.We estimate that the costs of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit by a significant amount.For this reason we feel unable to comply with this part of your request.
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Freedom of Information
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