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Latest press reports on UC

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Peter Turville
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Andrew Dutton - 07 June 2018 09:48 AM

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/07/universal-credit-tips-poor-into-hardship-says-charity

Note the deft employment of DWP off-the-shelf excuse #3457 - that any criticism is out of date and everything is hunky dory after some footling changes or other that have had to be levered out of DWP with a crowbar and castor oil.

Note also DWP off-the-shelf excuse #3450, that people are moving in to work more quickly etc - this in itself is of course out of date and discredited, but what the hell, eh?

I thought they were excuse #1. They have been using the same quote since day one of UC. Its part of the ‘test and learn’ process - lets see how many times we can repeat the same quote until someone actually believes us.

BC Welfare Rights
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https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/chairs-comments-dwps-universal-credit-17-19/

Commenting on DWP’s pre-release to journalists this afternoon of its headline predictions of the benefits of Universal Credit, Rt Hon Frank Field MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee said:

‘Don’t we all want to make our dreams a reality? Here’s the Department again extrapolating from a bunch of untested assumptions. The NAO is taking a hard look at the Department’s tendency to refer to dreams as if they’re reality. I will also be asking the Department again to publish the business case in full to enable proper scrutiny, rather than this bullish piece of guesswork.”

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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shawn mach
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 07 June 2018 12:27 PM

Latest business case for UC just been relaesed by DWP.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/714450/uc-business-case.pdf

Frank says:

Don’t we all want to make our dreams a reality? Here’s the Department again extrapolating from a bunch of untested assumptions. The NAO is taking a hard look at the Department’s tendency to refer to dreams as if they’re reality. I will also be asking the Department again to publish the business case in full to enable proper scrutiny, rather than this bullish piece of guesswork.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/chairs-comments-dwps-universal-credit-17-19/

 

Andrew Dutton
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Peter Turville
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I am reminded of the New Christy Minstrels ditty ‘Three wheels on my waggon’. Perhaps as an alternative to footy fever https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/12973/ Rightsnet should have a how many wheels are left on the UC waggon competition (probably less than Chris Froome will have when he wins the Tour de France)?

Andrew Dutton
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Peter Turville - 15 June 2018 09:23 AM

I am reminded of the New Christy Minstrels ditty ‘Three wheels on my waggon’. Perhaps as an alternative to footy fever https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/12973/ Rightsnet should have a how many wheels are left on the UC waggon competition (probably less than Chris Froome will have when he wins the Tour de France)?

A DWP spokesthing comments:

THERE ARE FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE WHEELS ON OUR WAGGON AND IT WORKS PERFECTLY! NOT A SINGLE ONE HAS FALLEN OFF! IN FACT, WE ARE ADDING WHEELS EVERY DAY! EVERYTHING IS GOING TO PLAN! ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS A ROTTEN FIBBER! I’m going for a little lie-down now…..

Benny Fitzpatrick
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“A DWP spokesman said: “Previous administrations poured billions into an outdated system with a complex myriad of benefits, which locked some people into cycles of welfare dependency. 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.

“Universal credit is good value for money and is forecast to realise a return on investment of £34bn over 10 years against a cost of £2bn, with 200,000 more people in work. Furthermore 83% of claimants are satisfied with the service and the majority agree that it ‘financially motivates’ them to work.”

Still got their heads in the sand then? How many times does Neil Couling think they can repeat the same vacuous and unsubstantiated platitudes? How many times do they have to repeat them before someone in the media has the courage to seriously challenge them on it?

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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£1.9 billion to date (£1.3billion on investment and £06.billion on running costs), £8 billion expectation of annual net benefit which remains unproven.

It’s an absolute scandal.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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It’s official: universal credit is a colossal, costly, hellish catastrophe

From day one, all those who understood the fiendish complexity of benefit systems warned Duncan Smith of the quicksands ahead. But with a blithe eureka, he claimed he had found the philosopher’s stone that would simplify everything, just like that. He sold it to his leader – David Cameron was never one for detail – as melding together six benefits in one easy form, all done online, so magic computers would change the amount paid each month with families changing lives.

Benny Fitzpatrick
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“so magic computers would change the amount paid each month with families changing lives.”

Changing lives for the worse! (But maybe that was the intention? I remember IDS making much of how it should be “punitive”).

shawn mach
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Work and Pensions Committee chair -

This report blows up the DWP’s constant assertion that everything is going well and that any criticism comes from those who wish to make trouble for Universal Credit. The points that individuals have raised with the Select Committee are now writ large as systemic faults within the system, and the Government is caught in a trap of its own making.

Because ministers were taught to be in denial earlier the programme, it has advanced to a stage where there is now a mega cost to scrap it and a mega cost to taxpayers to continue with it.

Either way, too many claimants are being screwed down into destitution while the DWP insists that all is okay. The Universal Credit we have seen is a shambles, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Sadly this report will make little difference if the senior officers running Universal Credit remain firmly entrenched in La La Land.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/chair-comment-universal-credit-17-19/

RSA’s Anthony Painter -

Taken together this package of welfare reform has left a system that is cruel, punishing, bureaucratic, authoritarian, ineffective, undermining of good work, and of caring, personal development, family harmony, and public health ...

... This system is a national scandal; it must be stopped not just patched up and as soon as possible. It has left us a society utterly morally degraded and, in many ways, repugnant. We should be ashamed of what we have done.

https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2018/06/universal_credit_enough_is_enough

Polly Toynbee -

The catastrophe of Iain Duncan Smith’s universal credit is laid out on the mortuary slab by the National Audit Office, the public spending watchdog. At phenomenal cost to the taxpayer, David Cameron and George Osborne backed this pointless upheaval that has inflicted untold suffering on claimants and yet achieves nothing measurable, says the national auditor’s autopsy report. It’s a breathtaking read.

This should mark a tombstone moment for a government whose wanton maladministration has caused unforced errors in one public service after another:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/15/universal-credit-colossal-catastrophe-national-audit-office

Public Accounts Committee Chair -

The Government’s introduction of Universal Credit has been one long catalogue of delay with huge impact on people’s lives.

After eight years’ work and £1.3bn spent on the project, not even 10% of claimants have transferred. Many who have moved are suffering hardship but the Department for Work and Pensions does not accept it is at fault.

DWP needs to wake up and understand what is going so wrong before future claimants share a similar fate

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news-parliament-2017/universal-credit-nao-chairs-statement-17-19/

DWP tweets -

Universal Credit is good value for money ... we have made signficant improvements as part of our ‘listen and learn’ approach ...  evidence show[s] Universal Credit claimants getting into work faster and staying in work longer ...

https://twitter.com/dwppressoffice/status/1007490250313228288

 

shawn mach
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It’s all fine ...... apparently David Gauke’s been to a JobCentre -

Just visited a Herts job centre & met with 20 work coaches. All thought #UniversalCredit a good system, none would go back to old system.

https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1007583611690864646

Andrew Dutton
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Not asking claimants is he? And how many JC staff grin and bear it because their next performance assessment depends upon telling the bosses what they want to hear?

shawn mach
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Andrew Dutton - 15 June 2018 03:33 PM

... how many JC staff grin and bear it? ...

Indeed, some don’t -

UC is a cruel regime that has the capacity to inflict untold misery on society. Over 70% of respondents to the survey said that the rollout of UC should be stopped. There will not be enough staff to deliver UC, as currently designed, safely. PCS agrees with the views of its members and believes that the rollout should be stopped until a fairer, fully staffed Social Security System is developed,

https://www.pcs.org.uk/department-for-work-and-pensions/news/pcs-survey-results-for-staff-working-on-universal-credit

Chrissum
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Hattie S
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shawn - 15 June 2018 03:31 PM

It’s all fine ...... apparently David Gauke’s been to a JobCentre -

Just visited a Herts job centre & met with 20 work coaches. All thought #UniversalCredit a good system, none would go back to old system.

https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1007583611690864646

What utter rubbish! The JCPs all hate UC almost as much as claimants do.

Andrew Dutton
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‘What utter rubbish! The JCPs all hate UC almost as much as claimants do.’

Ah, but remember this is Happy Land!

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Peter Turville
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# we’re still not listening

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Daphne
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This is my favourite -

Even ‘Duracell bunny’ McVey lacks energy to defend universal credit

Esther McVey said she had checked with ‘Darren from Wales’ and had been informed that universal credit was running perfectly.

Welfare Rights Adviser
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with McVey trumping about restoring HB to 18 to 21 year olds (she is clearly well informed), any sign of the regulations to actually do it in UC?

barbs1000
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‘Earlier this year we reinstated housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds’ spot the mistakes ...

Andrew Dutton
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https://moneyweek.com/universal-credit-and-the-tories-stumbling-welfare-reforms/

“[T]he government still seems bizarrely deaf to the hardship and upset the scheme is causing, argues The Economist. Despite evidence that it should pause the scheme, change course, or “risk doing real damage”, the government seems determined to plough ahead with this “giant, increasingly unpopular project”.

Mike Hughes
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GMWRAG has received a fair amount of traction this past week following the publication of https://gmwrag.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/universally-discredited-and-yet-still-in-need-of-a-consultation and may well lead to something more ordered and detailed. It also led to a fascinating Twitter exchange with Neil Couling in which he astonishingly seems keen to do the very thing the NAO just pulled DWPs approach to UC apart on i.e. attempting to conflate and correlate some fairly benign statistics into evidence that UC is working. Well worth a read at https://twitter.com/GMWRAGtweets?lang=en

Any of you on social media wishing to give this some further traction please feel free to do so.

BC Welfare Rights
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MickD
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Billy Durrant - 11 July 2018 11:52 AM

https://welfareweekly.com/mps-to-debate-sanctioning-esther-mcvey-over-universal-credit-lies/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mps-debate-sanctioning-esther-mcvey-12888870

She could lose her ministerial salary for a month apparently

Surely you mean for an assessment period, Billy.

Daphne
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Apparently Ms McVey has only ever made one mistake in the House of Commons. From the debate yesterday -

We have all made mistakes on various scales. But for the only mistake I ever made in this House, I just apologised. Most people think you do that in everyday life, but in this House the Opposition do not apologise, whereas I am prepared to do so.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Universal Credit: a ‘shoddy piece of work’

UC shames the UK.

As cracks appear in the Tories defence of the indefensible it’s time to take the fight against UC out of the chamber and onto ‘the street’ where its effects play out in real time, amongst real lives, every day.

Andrew Dutton
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https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/universal-credit-staff-told-get-1817817

‘Universal Credit staff told to ‘get people off the phone’ and force them online, despite fears they will miss payments’

Allegations:

Staff are encouraged to get people off the phone and force them to use online services
As a result payments to some of the most vulnerable claimants may be wrong
That people are being used as guinea pigs to test the UC roll-out
That the priority is to make the process easier for staff rather than claimants