MSE News: Universal credit - Most claimants unprepared, Citizens Advice says 6 November 2013 at 1:05PM in Benefits & tax credits 37 replies 4.8K views

Former_MSE_Darryl

"Most people on benefits who are out of work feel ill-prepared for the switch to universal credit, according to new research from Citizens Advice..."

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Universal credit: Most claimants unprepared, Citizens Advice says



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Butterfly_Brain

It is a universal car crash and the ones who will suffer will be the poorest, who can't afford the internet it is a catch 22 situation and IDS should face trial for the tax payers money that has been lost because of his hatred of the most vulnerable

Morglin

Not as unprepared as the government though!

The whole thing is descending into chaos, and as it has 'been red flagged' (by the government auditors) and seen as unlikely to succeed in it's present format, as the IT system cannot cope, then it may be that the whole thing will have to changed.


Lin

ptwparkinson

so one of the side effects of universal credit is to bring more people into mainstream banking --- so the banks will be making even more money and whoever is running this part of the banking system will probably be paid a healthy bonus

---

it`s time now that the people actually woke up and smelled the coffee ( well those who can afford the coffee )

thornelius_2

Why does it have to be paid monthly? Its alright for those over paid millionaire politicians who have plenty in the bank to not need to worry about running out of milk/bread/nappies but what about the rest of us?! There's no way I'd manage if everything was paid once a month and I'm not in the poorest of brackets. This whole thing is just asking for trouble :mad:

tomtom256

thornelius wrote: »

Why does it have to be paid monthly? Its alright for those over paid millionaire politicians who have plenty in the bank to not need to worry about running out of milk/bread/nappies but what about the rest of us?! There's no way I'd manage if everything was paid once a month and I'm not in the poorest of brackets. This whole thing is just asking for trouble :mad:

You get the same amount just in a lump sum. Where is the issue?

Those that work that get paid monthly have the same issues!

BigAunty

thornelius wrote: »

Why does it have to be paid monthly?

I haven't been paid weekly since a cash in hand job as a teenager and I'm in my forties now. Monthly income is the norm.

I know one of the reasons why Local Housing Allowance was switched to being paid directly to tenants was to improve their readiness for employment by taking responsibility for their own personal budget. Perhaps this is a reason why UC is following a monthly path - to mimic most employment income? I don't know, just musing.

At the end of the day, the recipient receives the same sum of money for the period.

Toto

My concern is how people ensure they're being paid correctly if all of these benefits are rolled into one. I've seen hundreds of threads over the years regarding tax credits overpayments and incorrect awards. The advice is to double check every detail of course but with one payment for six benefits I see a potential for massive issues. Not everyone has good financial knowledge or the ability to understand complex awards.

BigAunty

Toto wrote: »

My concern is how people ensure they're being paid correctly if all of these benefits are rolled into one. I've seen hundreds of threads over the years regarding tax credits overpayments and incorrect awards. The advice is to double check every detail of course but with one payment for six benefits I see a potential for massive issues. Not everyone has good financial knowledge or the ability to understand complex awards.

UC sounds like a dogs dinner in terms of its implementation. However, the original concept was a sound one - making benefit payments simpler and quicker by rolling a number of separate benefits into a single payment, cutting down on fraud and error.

Currently there are 50+ benefits, credits and allowances to administer, with some of the systems not integrated with each other that allows these errors to fester.

MissMoneypenny

BigAunty wrote: »

Currently there are 50+ benefits, credits and allowances to administer, with some of the systems not integrated with each other that allows these errors to fester.

Plus all the staff the state pays to administrate them.
As someone on here said before, if it was the other way around and UC was being split into 6 benefits: where some benefits were to dealt with by all the different councils in the UK and others dealt with by various other government offices, we would say what a waste of taxpayers money that was, to be funding all those extra staff.

The idea of paying UC monthly is because UC will be all the income based benefits for those of working age. When claimants get off UC, they will no doubt have a job where they are paid monthly and UC will have prepared them for this.

BigAunty

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

... if it was the other way around and UC was being split into 6 benefits: where some benefits were to dealt with by all the different councils in the UK and others dealt with by various other government offices, we would say what a waste of taxpayers money that was, to be funding all those extra staff.

....

In fact, I don't think UC goes far enough - every benefit should be rolled up into one single monthly payment. Also, council tax and benefits should be on the same system, too, instead of the split between central and local government.

Currently, a benefit claimant can identify their entitlements using an online benefit wizard so can get a single overview of what they should receive in five minutes - then they have to go off and apply for a handful or more separate forms to various separate bodies that get paid at different periods across the month.

It's a shame that all the benefits, allowances and credits can't be applied for online at the same time, held as a single record that warrants a single monthly payment.