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Universal credit an ‘unmitigated failure’ - PCS website
82% said training was less than adequate to prepare them for working on universal credit
77% thought staffing was less than adequate, with 66% frequently asked to work overtime
90% said the IT was less than adequate and only 0.9% said it was more than adequate
73% said working conditions were worse than those experienced in their previous role
55% said they didn’t think universal credit was an improvement over legacy benefits
This has just started getting some response - the DWP’s reply uses the words ‘the reality is’ - which is the pet-phrase of you-know-who.
Dispatches on universal credit - 8.00pm tonight on Channel 4 - will be worth checking out I reckon - here’s Mirror story on it -
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/universal-credit-adviser-told-not-5296854
are we stuck with it or do any of the parties propose dumping it after the election ?
The Labour Party has said that it will call a halt to it whilst it gets the National Audit Office to do an analysis of whether it will save money in the longer term, and will only go ahead if the answer is yes.
well dispatches programme was fun, not sure if it was more like the last days of pompeii or ‘up pompeii’ but as it reaches my neck of the wood in June this year we will soon find out the worst.
One of the interesting things coming out of the programme was the rigid, divided structure at DWP. Call Centre staff were not to tell claimants things that were the reserved province of the Work Coaches. This smacks of running the system in a way that suits the DWP and not the claimant. Surely people should be told as early as possible about STBAs etc - STBAs especially, as there seems to be this insistence that they may only be claimed within the first 21 days of a claim.
The Labour Party has said that it will call a halt to it whilst it gets the National Audit Office to do an analysis of whether it will save money in the longer term, and will only go ahead if the answer is yes.
It probably needs saying that although IDS is ploughing ahead; with the threshold conditions so tight, the demographic of people that it is catching will be, for the vast majority, people who will come off the workflow again so it’s still entirely feasible to stop it and let the caseload fall off naturally.
IDS has not yet had his day in my view; whatever he might declare.
every dog will have his day !
[ Edited: 10 Mar 2015 at 12:06 pm by SocSec ]Barking…..
every dog will have his day !
The Secretary of State had his day when he became party leader.
It didn’t last much longer than that mind :)
The trainers shown on “Dispatches”, telling advisers to withold information about advance payments, flexible support etc…..
Are DWP still using them?
If so, could they be open to charges of misconduct in public office on the grounds of conspiracy to withold legitimate benefit payments, knowing that detriment to the claimant will result?
If the govt can get away with it’s welfare reform policy including the bedrrom tax, PIP, restricting EU claimants from getting benfit at all etc etc etc. the chances of nailing a few poorly trained call centre staff [ who are probably desperate to keep their jobs rather than having to claim UC themselves ] are probably none too high
[ Edited: 10 Mar 2015 at 01:36 pm by SocSec ]I can’t see that it is just the trainers; they are not making this up spontaneously. This is cultural, departmental. DWP promised before New Year that information on STBAs would be made more widely available; there is still nothing on the gov.uk web site. There seems to be a determination to channel everything via the Work Coaches and to allow no other outlets for help or information.
unfortunately dwp call centre have had a culture of reading from a script for many yeras now. If they do give information it is as often wrong as it is correct. And as we all know from experience with jobcentre that if a claimant is sanctioned they are often given no info on hardship paymnets etc. UC is a different beast as the 5 week wait for cash WILL PUT MANY INTO HARDSHIP. IDS needs to come out now in public and confirm that as part of the claims procedure all claimants WILL BE INFORMED of the short term advance and the first leader of another party who brings this up at the dispatch box will get many many Brownie points for so doing. At least the tv show gave us at the coal face fair warning of how it will pan out ‘in reality’
[ Edited: 10 Mar 2015 at 02:24 pm by SocSec ]Nice idea, but IDS will just do his party trick of lying about it. The guy isnt well
Remember, this is a man who said “i dont CARE what the statistics say, I KNOW I am right”
poor fella, get well soon IDS
[ Edited: 10 Mar 2015 at 02:48 pm by SocSec ]It is the whole culture of institutionalised dishonesty and sleight of hand at the DWP which needs to be exposed and challenged.
The examples from “Dispatches”, as we know, are the tip of an extremely unpleasant iceberg which has been allowed to go unchallenged for years. Even when I worked for the then Benefits Agency in the mid 1990s we were discouraged from advising claimants on entitlement to other benefits or from assisting them to make claims. It seems there have always been those within the organisation who feel that a claim for benefits is a matter for punishment. IDS has just made these people all-powerful, and punishment of claimants for the crime of being in need has become more important than professional integrity and customer service.
We can all have every confidence that Work Coaches will receive appropriate training!
The whole idea of “take up” has largely been abandoned. At one point there was a type of “consensus” that “take up” was someting to actually be encouraged. Governments actually published figures on this, which normally showed that huge sums went unclaimed. This has now all been shelved…...I dont think the stats even get published. Or maybe it is not just newsworthy?
here’s a link to the dispatches episode
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/on-demand/61526-001
The whole idea of “take up” has largely been abandoned. At one point there was a type of “consensus” that “take up” was someting to actually be encouraged. Governments actually published figures on this, which normally showed that huge sums went unclaimed. This has now all been shelved…...I dont think the stats even get published. Or maybe it is not just newsworthy?
I think take up was in the good old days.
Now it’s deficit reduction as the plans put in place on expected income do not reflect the new reduced income.
Post May there will have to be cuts - deep and big cuts - the issue is where will the cuts fall.
Any UK government is stuck with working in a global framework - in the EU they’re busy creating Euro’s and inflating the deficit to by negative yielding bonds.
The world (IMF) is pushing at any hint of inflation to end the record period of Zero or near Zero interest rates - problem being if they get their way how do the bills get paid? It’s only done now by creating money on a computer and purchasing ‘bad’ assets or what’s necessary to keep kicking a can down the road.
I’m not an economist so I’m happy to be educated….......
I cannot see take up making a return for some time except if there’s some sort of catastrophic event.
Some years ago when our local MP was SSWP he arraged a visit to us with a DWP senior policy type who confirmed that DWP undertook deatiled calulations to estimate the level of take up for each benefit (presumably these were then used in the DWP published figures on projected expenditure).
So it must still be part of DWP expenditure planning to estimate what the actual take up against the possible maximum expenditure (full take up) is for each benefit.
The less take up there is the lower the predicted expenditure. Obviously currently there is a big incentive for DWP/Govt. to encourage take up!
£12.000.000.000 welfare cuts ‘promised’ by the govt after May , they are not apologising about these or showing any remorse, they are using them as a voter incentive for all those good folk out there who think the end of the workhouse was a retrograde step
also I head today that UC cannot bepaid into a post office card acount, is that true ???
also I head today that UC cannot bepaid into a post office card acount, is that true ???
No.
To be clear - I’m not saying you didn’t hear it. A PO account can be used for receipt of payment.
I presume the PO account may be sold to Maximus at some point in the future.
[ Edited: 13 Mar 2015 at 01:01 pm by John Birks ]