{"id":141397,"date":"2018-06-15T02:19:01","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T02:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/doubts-raised-over-universal-credit-roll-out\/"},"modified":"2018-06-15T02:19:01","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T02:19:01","slug":"doubts-raised-over-universal-credit-roll-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/doubts-raised-over-universal-credit-roll-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Doubts raised over Universal Credit roll-out"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Universal Credit website pic\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/36D1\/production\/_102033041_tv043134011.jpg\"\/>                      <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The \u00a31.9bn Universal Credit system may end up costing more to administer than the benefits system it is replacing, according to the National Audit Office.<\/p>\n<p>Ministers can never know if it puts the promised 200,000 extra people in work or saves \u00a32.1bn in fraud and error, the public spending watchdog says.<\/p>\n<p>It adds some claimants waited eight months for payment amid the switch to UC, which rolls six benefits into one.<\/p>\n<p>The government said UC will bring a \u00a334bn return over 10 years.<\/p>\n<p>It said more people would get into work and stay there longer and that it had taken a &quot;listen and learn&quot; approach to the introduction of the system.<\/p>\n<p>The move to the UC system has long been criticised for its delayed and flawed implementation, with more than 110,000 people paid late in 2017 alone.<\/p>\n<h2>What is Universal Credit?<\/h2>\n<p>Universal Credit merges six benefits (income support; income-based jobseeker&#039;s allowance; income-related employment and support allowance; housing benefit; child tax credit; working tax credit) into one.<\/p>\n<p>It was designed to make claiming benefits simpler. A single payment is paid directly into claimants&#039; bank accounts to cover whichever benefits they are eligible for.<\/p>\n<p>Claimants then have to pay costs, such as rent, out of their UC payment. It can be claimed by people whether they are in or out of work - but payment decreases as you earn more.<\/p>\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>The Child Poverty Action Group questioned whether the government should push on with a programme that was &quot;demonstrably failing&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>But the NAO report found that so many changes had been made to job centres and working practices that there was no &quot;alternative but to continue&quot;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I don&#039;t even have 4p to my name<\/li>\n<li>Theresa May urged to halt Universal Credit<\/li>\n<li>Charity calls for Universal Credit action<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Eight years after work began on UC, only 10% of the total number of people expected to claim are on the system, the NAO says.<\/p>\n<p>And one in five do not receive their full payment on time, the report adds. <\/p>\n<p>A significant minority of those paid late, some 20% - these are usually the more needy and complicated cases - are waiting five months or more to be paid.<\/p>\n<p>And yet the Department for Work and Pensions does not accept that UC has caused hardship among claimants, the report says.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p05zxc4g.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionUniversal Credit has proved controversial almost from the beginning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The report points to a recent internal departmental report showing 40% of claimants are experiencing financial difficulties.<\/p>\n<p>It says the DWP has not shown sufficient sensitivity towards some claimants as it will not accept late payments have caused hardship to people, because advances are available.<\/p>\n<p>It argues if claimants take up these opportunities, hardship should not occur. <\/p>\n<p>This approach had led the DWP to &quot;dismiss evidence of claimants&#039; difficulties and hardship instead of working with these bodies to establish an evidence base for what is actually happening&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;The result has been a dialogue of claim and counter-claim and gives the unhelpful impression of a department that is unsympathetic to claimants.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Analysis of DWP payment data revealed that in 2017, around one-quarter (113,000) of new claims were not paid in full on time. <\/p>\n<p>Late payments were delayed on average by four weeks, but from January to October 2017, 40% of those affected by late payments waited in total around 11 weeks or more. <\/p>\n<p>Some 20% waited almost five months and about 8% had to wait for eight months.<\/p>\n<p>Despite recent improvements, one-fifth of of new claimants in March 2018 did not receive their full entitlement on time. Some 13% received no payment on time. <\/p>\n<p>Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee said the introduction of UC had been &quot;one long catalogue of delay with huge impact on people&#039;s lives&quot;.<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Financial misery&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>A spokesman for the DWP said: &quot;We are building a benefit system fit for the 21st Century, providing flexible, person-centred support with evidence showing Universal Credit claimants getting into work faster and staying in work longer.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>He insisted Universal Credit was good value for money and repeated the forecast that it will realise a return on investment of \u00a334bn over 10 years against a cost of \u00a32bn, with 200,000 more people in work.  <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Furthermore, 83% of claimants are satisfied with the service and the majority agree that it &#039;financially motivates&#039; them to work,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Jane Ahrends, of the Child Poverty Action Group, said the NAO presented a &quot;justifiably bleak&quot; picture.  <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Today&#039;s report must give ministers pause for thought,&quot; she said. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Will the government press on with a programme that is demonstrably failing - causing financial misery for families - or will it restore the money that&#039;s been taken out of Universal Credit in an effort to rehabilitate it for struggling families.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Emma Revie, chief executive of food bank charity The Trussell Trust, called for more support to be put in place for &quot;groups of people most likely to need a food bank, and debt advice to be offered to everyone moving on to the new system&quot;.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u00a31.9bn Universal Credit system may end up costing more to administer than the benefits system it is replacing, according to the National Audit Office. Ministers can never know if<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}