Universal Credit - why worry?

We have been running seminars on welfare reform. The first thing everyone wants to know about is UC. However, even if UC is ‘rolled out’ on time (snigger snigger) it seems unlikely to affect most advisers until 2014 at the earliest (unless your working in one of the virtually non-existent ‘pilot areas’).

I understand why Gareth et al would spend time now preparing for UC now but other advisers? I’m not being critical and there is always merit in being ‘ahead of the game’, each organisation to its own priorities etc. Just wondering if/why advisers are spending a lot of time preparing for UC now compared to say PIP and other more immediate changes?

Just wondering if we should revise our priorities?

I want to be ready for when the Secretary of State has to consider his position.

There is so much re-organization and uncertainty within local authorities and so many benefit changes taking place that we don’t have the time to stay ahead of the game.  We’re swamped with ESA appeals, soon to be increased by PIP ones.  We’ve got a loose overview of UC, notwithstanding the fact that much of the structure of the JSA/ESA regimes will cross over into it, but we haven’t yet dived into much of the nitty gritty of it.

Why worry?

The Bedroom Tax
the Benefit Cap
appallingly unfair JSA sanctions
the increasing tendency for people to be left without any income at all for months on end due to administrative c*** ups and the like
the ongong ESA debacle
the forthcoming PIP debacle
etc etc. 

So no, UC is not really top of my list of priorites at the moment.

Ah, you posted a similar point as I was typing mine, nevip.  I’d say ‘great minds…’ but mine’s rather more addled than great, these days.

I don’t agree (surprise) but I understand your reasoning.

Three quick points.

a) My feeling is that you’re making a huge, if only implied, assumption.  That is that when you get UC introduced in your area you’ll then have enough time available to get to understand it.  My guess, and I’m not close enough to the sharp-end to see the trends on the ground, is that you’ll be even busier with all the issues listed above then than you are now.

b) You may not see new UC claims in your area but you may well see UC claimants popping up who’ve moved into your area (the lobster pot etc. - although I was told at a DWP session yesterday that they’re now banned from using the term but that no substitute has yet been coined). My suspicion is that the service those people will get from the local JCP office and LA office (have you seen the mess that the CTS default scheme has made of UC?) will be ‘variable’ and they’ll need help.

c) Biggest point of all.  UC is going to create winners and losers.  Those people need to know *before it hits them* what the effect is going to be and whether they can avoid / mitigate /take advantage of the changes with enough time to take any actions needed.

Personally I’m very happy that UC is not kicking in round here this year (if ever). As others have said, there are just too many other changes going on that test one’s sanity (not to mention judicial reviews which may impact at some point too). And now we have the ‘alternative WCA’ too. My money is on a fudge after the next election, i.e. Labour coming in, explaining that the Coalition has spent £X billions on a system that doesn’t work/led to chaos/National Audit Office investigation/IDS being sent to the Falklands as special mediator, and that ‘they’ are going to revert to something simpler that doesn’t cost a few more billions.

I remember that back in the 90s, Labour abandoned a sophisticated benefits PO payment card system that the Major govt had been working on before their demise.

I tend to agree with Gareth here, but naturally it’s a question of the best use of each organisation’s resources.

I’m playing UC down in our presentations about alleged reforms, as it will not fully cross the horizon for some time, but I’m building up materials (thanks to all of you and the occasional useful statement by the DWP) in order to avoid any nasty shocks. Plus I like to be able to answer those ever-popular questions….

As for IDS - what about Antarctica? Or Mars, yeah, maybe Mars, we need someone there now the Ice Warriors are back…..

Not a priority now (or anytime soon) for most advisers I’d have thought. Also the version of UC that eventually turns out to be deliverable might be somewhat different(*) from that developed for the very limited (and largely clerical) Pathfinders.

So no need to go too deeply into the details of UC now given the much more immediate problems the April changes have heaped on top of all the usual.

One day, though, it will be a really massive change (with, as currently proposed,  big negative impacts for many claimants ) so I don’t think lobbying, policy work and broader awareness-raising is in any way a waste of time.

(* It’s not that I think that they’ll be changing policy in the light of Pathfinder evidence - I doubt any useful evidence could be generated - rather, the systems limitations that are already dictating policy to an extent may become more apparent when they try to scale up.)

One of the problems is that unlike the introduction of previous new benefits, on UC we’ve had no training on it.  We would usually have had an independent outside trainer come in and give us a day’s training.  That was in the glorious days before local authorities were having their budgets slashed to the bone.  We are located in Adult Social Care which absorbs a massive part of the budget and we’ve struggled recently to even get the money for our Rightsnet subscription.  We got half a day’s ‘training’ on PIP by a nice chap from The Pension Service which ironically was paid for by the money our training officer brings in for giving training to other sectors within the Authority or to outside groups on general welfare reform.  So, we just don’t have the time on a daily basis to get to grips with much of the UC detail other than getting little snatches on an ad hoc basis.

I agree. Im told that the UC goalposts are constantly moving with regard to timescales and even the damned thing working. It is a waste of time and resources gearing up and training for something that will either not come out for a year or two, and when it does it will probably be a different animal than the one we trained for. Doing my PIP training on Monday though. Sunderland is a pilot area for PIP as no new DLA claims will be accepted round here.

Thank you for your views - keep them coming!

“Priorities dear girl/boy, priorities!”

As Oxford City Council are a pilot area for both Direct Payment and UC support it must be a possibility that it will be one of the first to which UC is ‘rolled out’ in our DWP region (apparently our local Benefit Centre - Cosham - is to be the ‘lead’ BC for UC in the region).

It will be interesting to see if Labour has learned from the tax credit fiasco and commits to significant changes to UC to make it work in practice and to do what it says on the tin (or abandons it?).

Having worked on Supp Ben and watched all the fun as the DHSS tried to ‘computerise’ that initially and then ‘giving up’ because they couldn’t write the softwear and inventing Income Support instead (or have I got rose tinted specs on?) UC just feels like the ‘good old days’ only wrote bigger!

Why worry? How about if you’re an adviser based in Ashton-under-Lyne!
We get our main Universal Credit training on Monday so we’ll be ready for any ‘pathfinder’ problems ....

I have spent some months teaching myself about UC, as I gave a lecture on it last September, for other advisers. And my town was designated as one of the pilot areas, until last month, when the pilot areas were suddenly reduced. It’s a question of resources, as well as priorities, I think. Some organisations might, like mine, have their own in-house staff trainers; some might not.

universal credit is coming in on the basis of one district in each of the seven Jobcentre Plus regions in the UK from October - does anyone know the locations of the districts yet?
I may find out tomorrow as I’m attending ‘The New Universal Credit System: Making Welfare Work’ forum, Tuesday 25 June, in London organised by Inside Government. They have created the hashtag #IGuniversalcredit for tweets throughout the day.

I think alot of people would like to know that, but I am pretty sure that few if any actually do.

Well…maybe just the US government…....