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Work & Pensions Committee report on UC wait for first payment
Now published at at https://committees.parliament.uk/work/135/universal-credit-the-wait-for-a-first-payment/publications/ .
Exceedingly chuffed that they’ve recommended that the DWP assess my proposed model of assessment of Universal Credit, which could sort out irregular assessment of earnings and remove the need for a 5 week wait for the first payment. Lots of nice quotes from my oral evidence in the report
If anybody’s interested, or sad, enough to want more detail on my suggestions, there’s a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMYLknF9da8 and a blog post at https://benefitsinthefuture.com/irregular-uc-and-regular-pay-a-solution-that-also-ends-the-5-week-wait/.
Nice work, Gareth!
I read your post earlier in the year and my only concern was the reconciliation issue, but I think it’s true that however you do it, it can’t be worse than the current system (and it’s hard to see how it could even come close without some fraud or reckless errors).
Looking at this report, the objection to the Ferret scheme seems really strange:
227. In written correspondence, the Minister for Welfare Delivery told us that the ‘day rate’ would be difficult to operationalise. He said that it is “possible to conceive of a daily-based system”, but it would rely on “accurate recording of start and end dates, as well as people working regularly within that period”. He told the Chair that the operational obstacle to a day rate would be running it at volume, “particularly as this increases the number of possible changes to bring to account when determining entitlement”.
Three points:-
1. The current system doesn’t care about accurate recording of dates, obviously. Great!
2. Not sure he’s understood the point of working out an average daily rate - it doesn’t really rely on people working regularly within a period. The more regular a person’s working pattern is, the easier it is to work out their UC, but that’s not a reason to dismiss any attempt at smoothing.
3. They seem to be arguing that you can’t change the system because you’d have to change the computer system. And at the same time they are arguing that the computer wouldn’t be able to handle all these calculations anyway. Are they running UC on my old ZX81 (with 16K RAM pack, obviously)?
It strikes me that this whole thing, and most of the problems of UC, stem from the initial fallacy of UC. Somebody (SSWP) looks at the benefit system and is appalled by how complicated it is. Rather than taking the time to work out why it’s so complicated, they jump to the conclusion that it must need simplification. They miss the point that the benefit system is complicated because people and their circumstances are complicated. Imagine if the DWP was in charge of shoe shops or opticians - it would all be one-size-fits-all - cheap and cheerless. On the other hand, the simpler you make things (seem), the less you (seem to) need experts.
Are you not a proponent of UBI then?
Are you not a proponent of UBI then?
Yes, but that’s a longer term aspiration.
Are you not a proponent of UBI then?
Yes, but that’s a longer term aspiration.
I was asking Timothy Seaside in terms of the above comments about complexity and simplification.
Yes, I think UBI is an excellent idea.
I see it as an answer to a question about fairness and enabling people, rather than issues of complexity/simplicity. It’s universal, but it’s basic, so there will be a lot of cases where it needs topping up - and they will be complex.