Flaws In Universal Credit System Leaving Vulnerable People Penniless

Design flaws in the universal credit (UC) system are leaving vulnerable claimants hundreds of pounds in debt and dependent on food banks, according to a study by a group of Citizens Advice offices. The main cause of difficulty is a built-in delay to UC which requires claimants to wait at least 42 days before receiving a benefit payment. This has left some claimants penniless, stressed, forced to borrow cash to pay rent or utility bills and struggling to buy food. The system is also dogged by computer processing errors, poor communications with claimants, and delays in fixing simple administrative problems. The study says that although UC assumes claimants are paid monthly in arrears half of low paid workers are paid weekly, meaning they must last for six weeks on a single week’s money. Read more on the Guardian website.

Universal Credit 'A Nightmare', Says Claimant Who Advertised Welfare Reform

A claimant who featured in a Government film about universal-credit said it is riddled with computer problems and could push people into hardship. In the DWP film, Daniel Pacey said it helped him find work and was far better than jobseeker's allowance. But he told the BBC a six-week delay before the first payment and further monthly payments were "a nightmare". The DWP said the benefit replicates the world of work and tackles dependency. Read more on the BBC website.

Govt. Dodged Scrutiny of Universal Credit

The damage coalition cuts and bodge have done to Universal Credit was omitted from the National Audit Office assessment of the scheme in November.  The full story emerged a week after the auditor published its report. Had the NAO been able to put all the cards on the table, it may have discredited the coalition as the country entered its few months of mudslinging before the general election in May. The ambitious Universal Credit welfare scheme was in a worse state than the DWP had admitted when the auditor did its assessment. But this may have been caused more by government cuts in welfare to people in low paid jobs than its well-publicised IT problems. Read more on Computer Weekly.

Spending Watchdog Accuses DWP of Hiding Universal Credit's Failings

Parliament's public spending watchdog has accused ministers in the DWP of hiding the failings of the coalition's troubled universal credit scheme. The public accounts committee said the decision to devise a new category of "resetting" projects could have been a way of preventing scrutiny and obscuring problems. The assessment comes in a report by MPs on the Major Projects Authority, the government watchdog responsible for assessing the scheme's implementation. According to the report, the DWP, in consultation with the MPA, published their delivery confidence assessment of the universal credit project as "reset" in September 2013. It was a new term that appeared to have been devised specifically for the new programme, committee members said. "The 'reset' category was introduced for the 2013-14 report and was only applied to this one project. The MPA confirmed that the decision to give universal credit a reset rating was ultimately made by ministers," the report said. Read more on the Guardian website.

Universal Credit Hiding the True Number of Unemployed

The introduction of the Government’s universal credit scheme has suffered from another embarrassing IT setback, after it emerged that claimants in a region piloting the new system had vanished from official statistics on unemployment.  Following disputes with auditors in recent months over computing problems that have cost taxpayers tens of millions of pounds, civil servants in the DWP have realised that the new system is incompatible with current methods of counting the number of jobless people in the country.  Statisticians currently measure unemployment by recording how many people are receiving jobseeker’s allowance – and counting universal credit claimants within the numbers of those seeking work would inflate the figures, because the recipients include people in employment who are receiving what was previously income support or working tax credit.  Read more on the Independent website.