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a few other details from Budget 2021 forecasts

Stuart
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Spotted some further details of note on welfare spending, in addition to those highlighted in our benefits news on the Budget, in the OBR’s March 21 economic forecast -

PIP Upper Tribunal decision CPIP/3062/2016 (supervision counts when hearing aids removed to wash) - costs estimated as £55m over 2021-2026 (table A.3)
Welfare cap - breached in all years from 21/22 - on course to exceed the cap in 2024-25 by £6.9 billion and to exceed the cap plus margin by £3.1 billion (para 4.4)
PIP telephone assessments - effect of suspending face-to-face expected to save £50m across 2020/21 and 2021/22 (Table A.3)
Increased ‘natural migrations’ from legacy benefits due to pandemic - Covid has led to reduced anticipated managed migration volumes by 50,000 (and saving f £470m between 2020/21 and 2025/26 (table A.3) - 3 million cases still on legacy benefits with 1.6 million of those expected to go through managed migration (para A.6)
Final universal credit rollout - still expected to take until September 26 (para A.26)
Tax credit debt transfers to DWP - these have been paused for much of 2020-21, and no confirmed date for resumption (para A.26)
Covid effect on disability/incapacity benefit claims - disability spending estimate revised up by £0.5bn due to assumed covid related health conditions and increased unemployment (para 3.83)

MARKG
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Revenues & Benefits Manager, EK Services, Canterbury, Dover, Thanet (shared service)

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where is para A.26 does it say about the UC rollout to Sept 26?

roecab
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Welfare benefits supervisor - Roehampton CAB

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Universal credit (UC) rollout: the pandemic means the Government has delayed the
managed migration phase of the UC pilot scheme until April 2022. While this is now
almost three years later than first planned, it does not further extend the September
2026 end date, which remains nine years behind schedule.


See page 211 here

https://obr.uk/download/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2021/

Ianb
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Macmillan benefits team, Citizens Advice Bristol

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Page 203.

bristol_1
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WRAMAS Bristol City Council

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para 2.23 “From April 2021, the period over which Universal Credit advances will be recovered will increase to 24 months,”

Will this apply to all claimants?
We had a letter circulated from Neil Couling which said “all New Claim and Benefit Transfer Advance applications will be offered the option to access the equivalent of 25 payments over a 24-month period.”

Do we think this will be applied automatically for all claims, to new claims only, or are claimants going to have to ring up UC on an individual basis and ask for the rescheduling of their existing UC advance recovery?

It would be really good to know this as the high rate of deductions and especially the recovery of UC advances is something which casues a lot of our client to fall into an unsustainable level of poverty

Charles
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Neil Couling has said on Twitter that the new longer period for repayments will only apply to advances taken out from April, not existing advances.

https://twitter.com/NeilCouling/status/1367156606459338755

bristol_1
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WRAMAS Bristol City Council

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Thanks very much Charles.
I can only echo the sentiments of the response on Twitter - this is a disappointment for claimants currently struggling with advance payment deductions.

I can only think it’s an IT problem stopping it from applying to existing claimants, as it makes no sense to say that people newly moving onto UC are struggling and can benefit from this, but those already on it aren’t, and can’t? One rule for some and another rule for others, arbitrarily on the basis of the date of your UC claim? It’s all very unsatisfactory.

BC Welfare Rights
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The Brunswick Centre, Kirklees & Calderdale

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Neil Couling’s letter referred to above attached

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