Single claimants only???

We have now been told that roll-out in Derbyshire will be for single claimants only - and that’s what the ‘UC National Expansion’ leaflet from DWP says -

‘Universal Credit will roll out to new claims from single people, who would otherwise have been eligible for Jobseeker’s Allowance, including those with existing Housing Benefit and Working Tax Credit claims.’

and yet…..

Memo ADM 15/14:

From 28.7.14, the requirement for the claimant to be single no longer applies in any of the relevant districts. See the Appendix to ADM Chapter M3 (Gateway conditions – claims for UC from 16.6.14) for details of the relevant districts.

So will DWP have to issue new Gateway conditions? Or new guidance?

Will I ever understand this?

I think you need to read that bit of ADM 15/14 as “applies in any of the (current) relevant districts ” ie before the Spring 15 “expansion”

When it was written all of the 27 relevant districts were taking couples claims (as does (or did/will) No 28 - the digital trial from November.)

Ah - so there will be new ‘relevant districts’ with different rules, or at least different guidance?

Honestly, keep up please.  It is simple you know 😊

I’ve assumed that the tranche-1 expansion will keep the same gateway conditions as elsewhere ( apart from the single claimant requirement ) - has anyone seen anything that would confirm this - or that suggest otherwise?).

That’s the problem -there’s next to nowt.

I had sort of thought that once they’d learned how to administer claims for couples as well as singles in one area then they could do it in new areas, but plainly not.

We surely need written confirmation of which rules apply in which area???

And are we now going to have different areas within the same county all running at different speeds? And for how long?

The diagram on page 6 of this…

http://bit.ly/1HdiGUX

... implies that all the 2015 UC “expansion” areas are going to be limited to claims from single claimants who would otherwise claim JSA;  that will continue until some point in 2016.

Thanks for this Jon -  I remain chagrined at DWP’s utter lack of clarity.

Andrew Dutton - 29 January 2015 10:56 AM

Thanks for this Jon -  I remain chagrined at DWP’s utter lack of clarity.

We have just been advised by DWP that the start date locally is April (exact date not confirmed - although they previously gave one!) but they will not provide any other info. before a Stakeholder meeting in mid Feb.

Which does raise the question of how much DWP locally actually know at this stage. But then its normal for staff who administer benefits to be the last to be informed / trained when there is any major change / new benefit introduced!