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UC still seeing over a quarter of claims not resulting in payment starts
Thanks to Martin at CPAG for asking DWP for breakdown of reasons that UC claims don’t progress into UC starts (i.e. payment). You can see the FOI request and response on whatdotheyknow.com
It’s hard to be precise as the rounded figures in the disclosure don’t total exactly. However, it looks like around 25% of the 3.3 million UC claims commenced in the year March 2023 - February 2024 didn’t become UC starts. Roughly the same proportion as it was 6 years ago, see Rightsnet story from April 2018
The breakdown shows that more than 10% of the 3.3m claims failed because they were “not process compliant” i.e. failed to book or attend an initial interview, did not accept claimant commitment or didn’t book claimant commitment interview. This says to me that these claims are failing because claimants aren’t getting to their Jobcentre appointments, but why is that? Is this something we should be concerned about?
I’m also intrigued by the 4% of claims that don’t become starts for “other reasons”... What are these other reasons?
Thanks to Martin at CPAG for asking DWP for breakdown of reasons that UC claims don’t progress into UC starts (i.e. payment). You can see the FOI request and response on whatdotheyknow.com
It’s hard to be precise as the rounded figures in the disclosure don’t total exactly. However, it looks like around 25% of the 3.3 million UC claims commenced in the year March 2023 - February 2024 didn’t become UC starts. Roughly the same proportion as it was 6 years ago, see Rightsnet story from April 2018
The breakdown shows that more than 10% of the 3.3m claims failed because they were “not process compliant” i.e. failed to book or attend an initial interview, did not accept claimant commitment or didn’t book claimant commitment interview. This says to me that these claims are failing because claimants aren’t getting to their Jobcentre appointments, but why is that? Is this something we should be concerned about?
I’m also intrigued by the 4% of claims that don’t become starts for “other reasons”... What are these other reasons?
We have heard anecdotally from a source who had worked in UC that job centres screen and weed out some claims e.g. young people in non-advanced education. I should say we have not seen anything to substantiate this. But the source in question is a credible person and we have seen odd arbitrary seemingly inexplicable closure of claims in quick time. Which makes us wonder?
So did FOI which denied that there was a screening / weeding out process - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/initial_uc_claims_go_to_the_serv#incoming-2286533.
Whether there is an informal arbitrary ab lib process at some job centres doing stuff of their own volition I don’t know. But I wouldn’t rule it as a possibility, without further evidence to the contrary.
Having endured UCFS from 06/12/2017 and observed lots of extraordinary stuff. May be a FOI from an upcountry person to explore the 4% would be worth considering?