£20 extra on JSA is this right a court case last week for people on legacy benefits

Spoonie_Turtle

Muttleythefrog said:

p00hsticks said:

Muttleythefrog said:

Where there is a will there is a way... for example the DWP seems capable of issuing Cold Weather Payments to relevant claimants on relevant benefits. There must be systems like that (it's just one off top of head) which could have been temporarily used....

Trust me, there aren't. Cold Weather Payments work in an entirely different way for an entirely different cohort. By far the simplest and most cost-effective way would have been for individuals to elect to move over to UC but I'm guessing that many chose not to because they would have then received less or had savings that precluded them from being eligible.

That's just an example...the government used generic tools like Council Tax Support (which also wasn't designed to deal with one off type support as happened) to target support. I imagine many (like myself - who follows benefit changes so well above average knowledge for a claimant I'd propose) assumed that they could not move unless circumstances triggered such... I only discovered differently by a throwaway comment on MSE IIRC just as I found out I might have been underpaid ESA. Some I understand would have not been able to. There's a total lack of information through rollout... and when politicians engaged the legacy benefit uplift issue I honesty didn't see any (perhaps there are examples out there I didn't see) including my own MP suggest people could move if it benefitted them... and possibly because either they didn't know or they thought the government would do the right thing ultimately. 

Not specifically related but it does remind me that when there was some public encouragement at the start of the pandemic for people generally to claim UC (I can't remember how the timing related to the increase), it resulted in people losing out, particularly many Tax Credits claimants who ended up much worse off!  They really don't seem to be able to get the public messaging right either way.

sammyjammy

I think it was lack of trust in the Government, so much negativity and fear around claiming UC that people just didn't trust the message.

Muttleythefrog

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Muttleythefrog said:

p00hsticks said:

Muttleythefrog said:

Where there is a will there is a way... for example the DWP seems capable of issuing Cold Weather Payments to relevant claimants on relevant benefits. There must be systems like that (it's just one off top of head) which could have been temporarily used....

Trust me, there aren't. Cold Weather Payments work in an entirely different way for an entirely different cohort. By far the simplest and most cost-effective way would have been for individuals to elect to move over to UC but I'm guessing that many chose not to because they would have then received less or had savings that precluded them from being eligible.

That's just an example...the government used generic tools like Council Tax Support (which also wasn't designed to deal with one off type support as happened) to target support. I imagine many (like myself - who follows benefit changes so well above average knowledge for a claimant I'd propose) assumed that they could not move unless circumstances triggered such... I only discovered differently by a throwaway comment on MSE IIRC just as I found out I might have been underpaid ESA. Some I understand would have not been able to. There's a total lack of information through rollout... and when politicians engaged the legacy benefit uplift issue I honesty didn't see any (perhaps there are examples out there I didn't see) including my own MP suggest people could move if it benefitted them... and possibly because either they didn't know or they thought the government would do the right thing ultimately. 

Not specifically related but it does remind me that when there was some public encouragement at the start of the pandemic for people generally to claim UC (I can't remember how the timing related to the increase), it resulted in people losing out, particularly many Tax Credits claimants who ended up much worse off!  They really don't seem to be able to get the public messaging right either way.

Yes Boris Johnson even expressed his confusion (when answering select committee questions) as to why some couldn't claim U/C (again despite many MPs writing to him about it) due to NRPF condition imposed on them. Messaging confused with ignorance and quite frankly lack of interest I think.