Alternative Payment Methods

Hi Hivemind

Chatting to our local DWP partnership manager yesterday APMs (ahah I have coined an acronym at last!) came up. I was informed that the decision whether to initiate an APM will be for the Work Coach so if we thought they were a good idea to contact them.

She also told me that APMs would be a temporary measure as the policy is intended to teach people financial responsibility.

The concerns about monthly payments and ths new policy drive have been aired already and I don’t intend to rehearse them here -despite my particularly vulnerable client group- however my litigious nerve got all twitchy during the conversation so I got to wondering whether there’s any formal guidance out yet?

Where my partner works in the Manchester area they’re known as APAs (pronounced ap-pa)..
Have you seen the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Budgeting Support stuff? Referred to in this old article by CPAG http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/universal-credit-budgeting-support  and a bit more detail on gov.uk https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181400/personal-budgeting-support-guidance.pdf

Cheers Billy, I will have a brood on that later.

At DWP Operational Stakeholders meeting yesterday, we were told that the intention is that UC claimants can raise the fact of needing APM’s for rent payments at their initial interview with the Work Coach, and if they do this, then there should be consideration of whether these are necessary for them i.e. are they one month or more in rent arrears.