We’re quoted in the report below by Disability News Service. Their Freedom of Information requests exposed more about claimants cut off by the DWP.

The fate of ESA claimants was raised by Rick Burgess with the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee in June, referring to our campaign, at their hearing, “Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants inquiry — one year on“. See video or text of the session.

Shared from DNS with thanks:

DWP stopped claims of more than 1,200 disabled people who ‘failed to engage’ with universal credit migration

By Hannah Sharland on 20th August 2026

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted terminating the claims of more than 1,200 disabled people who failed to engage with “migrating” onto universal credit, raising fresh fears over the safety of the process.

The claims were stopped despite previous evidence that the migration from benefits such as employment and support allowance (ESA) was putting claimants at risk of homelessness, destitution and severe mental distress.

For years, disabled campaigners and independent media have been warning of the disastrous impacts of DWP’s forced migration process on disabled claimants.

Figures now obtained by Disability News Service (DNS) through a freedom of information request reveal that DWP terminated the universal credit claims of hundreds of ESA and housing benefit claimants for failing to engage with the process, despite indicators that they had additional barriers to making the move.

They show that of claimants who had previously only been receiving ESA, DWP terminated 1,640 claims for “failing to engage” with the department.

This group is part of the 13,591 ESA-only claimants who the department has now stripped of the legacy benefit and did not make the move to universal credit.

The figures also show that 760 claimants who had previously only been receiving housing benefit also had their claims terminated for “failing to engage”.

DWP says that fewer than 10 claims were closed “due to failing to verify ID”, while 390 ESA-only and 370 housing benefit-only claimants had claims terminated “due to failing to accept the claimant commitment”.

But by far the biggest group – including 1,250 ESA-only and 390 housing benefit-only claimants – had their claims terminated before receiving their first payment because they had failed to attend a DWP appointment.

A key concern revealed by the figures is that 900 of the 1,640 ESA-only claimants whose claims were terminated for failing to engage had been eligible for DWP’s “enhanced support”.

The department offered enhanced support to claimants 11 weeks after they received their migration notices.

This was supposed to include a series of phone calls, home visits, and broader support for those the DWP had identified were “more likely to be vulnerable”.

The freedom of information response also reveals that DWP had referred 320 ESA-only claimants to a “complex case coach”, for example because they had physical or mental health conditions, had a suicide or self-harm risk, alcohol or drug addiction, or were at risk of homelessness.

These coaches might have also supported those with additional barriers to making a fresh claim for universal credit, such as care leavers or those experiencing domestic abuse.

The triggering of the enhanced support journey and “complex case coach” involvement may suggest DWP attempted to provide a number of these claimants with additional assistance in their migration.

But the new figures show that many claimants who required this support still had their claims terminated by DWP, which suggests significant safeguarding failures.

They also show that 1,080 ESA-only claimants (66 per cent) and 240 housing benefit-only claimants (32 per cent) who had their claims terminated for failing to engage had applied for reasonable adjustments, raising questions over whether DWP adequately met those access needs.

The figures obtained by DNS only relate to those who had previously been receiving only ESA or only housing benefit.

There are likely to have been hundreds, if not thousands, more claimants receiving multiple benefits who also had their claims terminated for failing to engage with the universal credit process before reaching their first payment of universal credit.

In March, the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers (NAWRA) wrote to the Commons work and pensions committee warning of multiple safeguarding failures putting claimants at risk during the migration process.

The letter detailed the catastrophic impact of the termination of disabled people’s claims for universal credit for reasons explained by DWP in the freedom of information response.

In one case study, NAWRA described how DWP had put a housing benefit and ESA claimant with schizophrenia at serious risk of eviction because it terminated his claim over failure to attend an appointment at the jobcentre and verify his identification.

The DWP left another claimant destitute and facing homelessness despite their long history of being sectioned due to severe mental health issues, and even though they had a care package in place.

This claimant also failed to engage in identification checks during two attempts to claim universal credit.

On reviewing the DWP figures, a NAWRA spokesperson told DNS: “It is extremely concerning that only 900 of the 1,640 ESA claimants who failed to migrate safely were on the enhanced support journey when the DWP repeatedly assured stakeholders that all ESA claimants would be picked up and given the additional support if required.

“The then senior responsible owner [for universal credit] Neil Couling told local authorities in April 2024 that ‘additional contact will be made for all households who are in receipt of employment and support allowance’.

“The DWP has completely backtracked on its commitment to provide proper support to its most vulnerable claimants and it must set out what it is doing to contact those claimants and ensure they are not left destitute or worse.”

Claire Glasman, from the disabled women’s campaign group WinVisible, said the freedom of information response showed “how many sick, disabled and at-risk claimants have been brutally cut off by the DWP.

“We’re frightened for people who were left destitute and facing eviction, and we don’t know how many came to harm or even took their own lives.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “Supporting disabled people will always be our top priority, and we take safeguarding extremely seriously.

“That’s why for our most vulnerable customers that need help to claim, we provide extra contact and support through the Enhanced Support Journey, and every effort is made to contact the customer or their representative before we consider closing their claim.

“For those that successfully make a claim, we provide additional support until first payment, consider all possible barriers or vulnerabilities, and make sure all steps have been taken to support a claimant before we consider closing a case.”

But Glasman told DNS how the enhanced support journey “was nothing more than being harassed to start a claim, which only worsened the illness and anxiety of many ESA claimants.

“When the DWP refused extensions of ESA, we provided practical help, such as support with making a phone claim, to women with mental distress, survivors of childhood trauma and domestic violence, who otherwise would have been cut off and a statistic.

“The [freedom of information response shows] how many hurdles someone is supposed to complete – confirming ID at a Jobcentre, agreeing the claimant commitment – while facing barriers like not having a smartphone or not being online at home, or having a speech impediment so not being understood over the phone, or other language barriers if English is not our first language.”

She said that claimants from the ESA support group, who were exempt from work conditions, did not expect to have to agree to a claimant commitment for universal credit to avoid their claim being closed.

She added: “From direct experience, we put together self-help information on our rights and the pitfalls, which was viewed over 10,000 times.”

Meanwhile, the department this week released updated figures that confirm previous fears that the migration process has left tens of thousands of ESA claimants without out-of-work benefits.

They show that of nearly 880,000 ESA claimants who stopped receiving these “legacy benefits” in the migration process, 22,870 failed to migrate onto universal credit, according to the latest figures from May 2026*.

It is not yet clear how many of this group in total had their claims terminated for failing to engage with the universal credit process.

The data also reveals that, of the small number of outstanding claimants whose migration was still in progress in March, more than a third (183) of those claims that have since been cleared did not make the move to universal credit.

The May data shows just 262 ESA claimants are now left to make new claims to universal credit.

*The figures can be viewed at DWP’s data platform, Stat-Xplore, under the “Move to Universal Credit – MtUC Individuals 3 – Migration notices by legacy benefit and move status” dataset