UC, Inside the Welfare State BBC 2 21:00 hrs 04/02/2020

TELLIT01

I was working on ESA at the time UC was created.  Virtually everybody in the office said that people having to wait 5 weeks for money, and rent being paid to the claimant to pass on to the landlord, was a recipe for disaster.  Unfortunately we were right to be concerned.

Robbie64

TELLIT01 said:

I was working on ESA at the time UC was created.  Virtually everybody in the office said that people having to wait 5 weeks for money, and rent being paid to the claimant to pass on to the landlord, was a recipe for disaster.  Unfortunately we were right to be concerned.

Actually if you remember when UC was first introduced the standard waiting period was 6 weeks not 5 because until February 2018 there was a 7 day waiting period at the start of a claim (unless the person was moving from a legacy benefit such as ESA or JSA in which case there was no waiting period and so UC was paid 5 weeks after making a claim).

coachman12

Sorry to go off on a wider tangent, which should be subject of a separate thread, so please just ignore this as you see fit. 
UC, like many high-minded bright ideas, sounds like a panacea, so sensible, so obvious, so efficient-----in principle; but turns into a disastrous nightmare when attempted in practice. 
I wonder if IDS was a visionary but was failed by civil service red-tape and bureaucracy or whether he will go down in history as someone who was a dogmatic right-winger who never had a thought for the deserving benefit seekers but just for his own heroic political legacy as he saw it. 
Sorry, just a passing thought as I sat here.

TELLIT01

For what it's worth I do believe the idea behind UC is a good one.  A single flexible benefit which adapts to changing needs without having to repeatedly close on claim and open another.  The problem is that no government that I can remember has ever managed to implement any major IT system properly.

To be fair, UC is the only sysem I can remember where a Government minister has stopped/delayed implementation and admitted that it was not ready to go live.

45002

It made me laugh,

When the DWP bosses said  "they couldn't understand why there had been a drop in change of circumstances" and less people moving from legacy benefits to UC.

Besides that the series was nothing like what really happens in real life and was just a expense publicity stunt.

thepurplepixie

TELLIT01 said:

I caught a few minutes of last night's episode.  I was open mouthed at the woman, presumably from DWP, who flatly denied there was any correlation between the introduction of UC and the increase in debt by benefit claimants.

I thought it was almost laughable if it was so shocking when they kept insisting an advance wasn't a debt.  Well it wasn't a free gift was it.  Why give that woman so much that has left her in a mess.  Why would you need an advance to tide her over till first payment that was more than she was going to get in a month.  She was obviously going to struggle.

poppy12345

The thing is with UC is it's paid monthly. People see that "larger" sum of money and just spend it. The woman who was given all that advance payment proved that having all that money just makes some people spend spend spend and this is exactly what this person did. The sad thing was she was given another advance payment, which was also spent but why give so much  to start with? Doesn't make sense to me.

NedS

To be fair it's no different than if someone started work today. If you started a new job today, chances are it will be paid monthly, and you've missed the February pay run, so your first payment will be in 5 weeks time. If you don't have an emergency fund to see you through the next 5 weeks, you're going to have to borrow some money to see you through. So work puts people into debt too, no different from UC. If you are lucky, you may be able to ask your new employer for an advance on your first payment - just like UC. Would we be blaming employers for forcing people into debt? I doubt we would. I see nothing wrong with asking (expecting) people to be fiscally responsible, and if they are not able then there is budgeting support available just like there is for the rest of us. When I receive my monthly payment, I choose not to rush out and buy a new mobile phone and some new shoes. I choose to pay my bills and buy food for my family. Neither UC nor my employer made me do this, it was my choice. Just like the woman in the episode chose to spend her money on a new mobile phone rather than paying the bills and buying food, and then went to a food bank for a handout. If she had a job paying £1000/month instead of £1000/month UC, I doubt the outcome would have been any different so I fail to see any link between UC and her poor financial choices.

John464

TV Companies have been forced to save money - and sending a man with a camera to go out with the police,  prisons, or DWP etc is the cheapest way to make a programme.  I guess its only to be expected these organisations are only going to let the TV reporters in if they are shown in a favourable light.
Bearing that in mind, I still found it interesting.