Government to move 12 million claimants onto universal credit by 2017,

says Iain Duncan Smith.”...it will replace the current costly, outdated process with a digital system, which will be simpler to use…”

Yes. That’s my experience of the digital world too. Faultless.

” errrrr….Have you turned your claim off and on again?”

Yesterday a colleague sent a simple one-line e-mail to everyone going to a particular meeting. 71 TIMES 12 people.

Imagine if your computer went mad and made 71 clalims for benefit….no, it couldn’t happen.

Friday pm thought…..

as someone whose experience goes back to Supp Ben (as a SB assessor) in the days when it was calculated by hand (and no calculators) on the back of an A14 and experienced the introduction of IS/HB/FC etc (as a benefit office worker & then CAB adviser)when it was possible to work those benefits out the back of an envelope (a calculator helped!).

Golden Rule of welfare reform - if you can’t work it out on the back of an envelope it is probably too complicated and likely to be subject to repeated delay/failure and very expensive to administer (even through an IT port hole).

Conclusion - UC can’t be worked out on the back of an envelope so it will fail to meet the objective of simplification and will be that potential motorway pile up. Still there will be a UC App - will there also be a ‘how to sort out your claim for UC when you’ve got no money for your smart phone App?

Gareth - will Ferret be producing spare envelopes?

All our envelopes have two fronts and no back.