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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

UC is a ‘transformational reform, being safely delivered’, according to Iain Duncan Smith

Andrew Dutton
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council

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http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/news/story/uc-is-a-transformational-reform-being-safely-delivered-according-to-iain-du

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365703/uc-at-work.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29720634

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/22/universal-credit-work-pensions-tax-credit-economy

BBC report – “On the ambition to transfer all 7.7 million claimants by 2017, Mr Duncan Smith said: “That’s our belief at the moment under the system that we are running.” [it’s based on his beliefs again but note the more cautious language]

Guardian - Universal credit, the government scheme to integrate in- and out-of-work tax credits, will generate £7bn in economic benefits annually, largely due to up to an additional 300,000 households finding work once the programme is fully implemented, Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has said.
The claim was made as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed that millions of existing benefit claimants would not be transferred to universal credit by the end of 2017, or even 2018. Duncan Smith said: “It is wrong to gather people up and dump them into a new system at an arbitrary date.” [Irony alert! Irony alert!!!]

Jon Blackwell
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Notable for new “planning assumptions” on UC caseload :

May 2015: 0.1 million

May 2016: 0.5 million

One day, maybe, sometime: 7.7m.

Don’t hold your breath…

 

 

 

[ Edited: 22 Oct 2014 at 04:19 pm by Jon Blackwell ]
Andrew Dutton
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PS -  an initial read indicates that the ‘report’ is chiefly puffery and propaganda. It makes some interesting claims:

‘emerging evidence so far indicating that Universal Credit claimants do more to find a job’ -  the fact that they are forced to spend 35 hours a week doing so as a condition of entitlement is not mentioned.

‘Universal Credit also establishes a new relationship between the State and households. It deliberately fosters independence and personal responsibility, promoting the self-sufficiency critical for people to secure and sustain employment.’ - it also introduces new tranche of state supervision of working people, who can lose benefits if ‘the state’ decides they have not done enough to seek more/better work.

‘Segmentation trials which will develop a solid evidence base for refining to whom and when the Department targets specific interventions and how it will interact with different claimants.’ - from this tortured language, translate: ‘We will profile people with dubious questionnaires and sanction the ones we think will be stroppy’

‘Nathanial a former Universal Credit claimant at Oldham Jobcentre Plus says: “I completed a Claimant Commitment, which was an agreement setting out all the actions I would take to find work, and this pushed me to be more motivated about my job search.” ‘- errrrm, how?

‘The successful piloting of the Claimant Commitment led to it being rolled out nationwide, for all those making new claims to Jobseeker’s Allowance. This is a good example of how we are gradually rolling out the features of Universal Credit in a safe and secure way, which reduces the delivery risks of such a transformational programme.’ - but it didn’t introduce anything new, it just changed the name of the JS Agreement. This claim is simply untrue.


‘Reduction in Fraud: The greater simplicity of Universal Credit will generate savings by reducing the scope for fraud (and also enables the Department to reduce error)’ this claim runs contrary to all the warnings they have had about UC being wide open to fraud.

(and so on….)

Peter Turville
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Although given the scale of the thing EU rules will mean DWP will have to advertise the procurement of all those additional calculation sheets and calculators so we will be able to monitor how quickly its being delivered in practice?

Jon Blackwell
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Andyp4 - 22 October 2014 04:05 PM

Buried away on page 30 - Jon think your 1.0 million is a typo, it actually says 0.5 million!

Oops - quite right - 0.5m

Mr Finch
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I would be interested in seeing a reform that wasn’t also transformational.

benefitsadviser
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Im looking forward to the time where Jobcentre Plus workers end up having to sanction each other as i cant see the need for full time jobcentre advisers when everything goes digital.

Just a thought…...

Paul_Treloar_CPAG
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For some reason, every time I read the headline of this thread, a little voice in my head starts singing:

“I’m a little teapot, Short & stout, Here´s my handle, Here´s my spout, When I get steamed up, I just shout, Tip me up & pour me out….”

Time to go home methinks…..

1964
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Deputy Manager, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit

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It comes to us all eventually Paul.

A little lie down and some nice pills will help.

Now has anyone seen my giraffe?

Peter Turville
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Paul_Treloar_CPAG - 22 October 2014 04:56 PM

For some reason, every time I read the headline of this thread, a little voice in my head starts singing:

“I’m a little teapot, Short & stout, Here´s my handle, Here´s my spout, When I get steamed up, I just shout, Tip me up & pour me out….”

Time to go home methinks…..

Was it Spike Milligan who said if you repeat something often enough people will find it funny - “teapot, teapot, teapot, teapot ................”

“UC on time and on budget, Uc on time ........... “

“transformational, transformational, ......... “

ad infinitum

Pete C
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I loved the idea that UC is being ‘safely delivered’ - judging from current progress this is a euphemism for ‘not being delivered at all unless we can do the calculation on the back of a fag packet’

garym65
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You know it will never happen in a million years, the whole project is beset by delays and changes in management, to make it unbearably clunky. Scrap it and start again please IDS

Andrew Dutton
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FT takes the angle that he has scrapped his ‘roll-out’ (hate that phrase) targets: full article here
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d4e1dfa4-5a02-11e4-8771-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Gy3maR5a
Plus…. ‘The work and pensions secretary also said he wanted to ban EU migrants from claiming the benefit – potentially adding a further level of complexity.’
(…)
The remarks came as Mr Duncan Smith finally scrapped completion targets for the scheme, which has been dogged by delays and millions of pounds of IT writedowns and write-offs.
(…)
In the original blueprint, 1m people were due to be claiming universal credit by April this year, but the actual figure is about 14,000*, according to figures released on Wednesday at the publication of a progress report into the scheme

*[interestingly HMG is slinging around a figure of 30,000, which I assume is everyone who has ever claimed, including those who have stopped claiming]

Daphne
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Yes - interestingly there seem to be far more applications than starts on UC - I wrote to the UC team a couple of weeks ago to ask why so many applications are failing - see below - but no reply yet -

‘I notice that in the UC stats to 14 August 2014 - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/355142/universal-credit-statistics-first-release-aug-2014.pdf - there have been 13,260 starts on UC.

Yet there have been 21,410 applications made in the same period - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359509/ad-hoc-statistics-people-making-claim-universal-credit.pdf

Can you give any indication as to why a third of applications are failing – it seems a very high drop-out rate?’

Daphne
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Here is the DWP response….doesn’t really address the question…I shall be writing back…

Answer -  Applications are not failing.  We are seeing people claiming and then leaving UC, either through employment, their entitlement has ended or they are not entitled at all due to circumstances, or they have decided not to proceed with their claim. 

Gareth Morgan
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Daphne - 17 November 2014 08:54 AM

... they are not entitled at all due to circumstances, ...

Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised, thanks to the simplicity, clarity and quality of information, that a lot of non-qualifying applications had been made.

Daphne
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I think you’re likely right but I’m pushing for a breakdown of the 7000 applications that did not make it to a claim and the reasons why - and what happens to those people!