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UC rollout - what failures?
See today’s News page -
‘Commenting on the roll out of the new benefit, Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud said -
‘Universal credit is modern welfare that rewards people who move into work, supports those who’ve fallen on hard times and is fair to taxpayers. We introduced universal credit in a slow, safe and controlled way in Manchester and this careful approach is working well. Most people are claiming it online, the IT is working and comprehensive support is in place.
We will build on these successes as universal credit rolls out across the country.’
Buzzwords and cliches all present and correct (ooops, there’s another)
‘working well…successes’ - words are changing their meaning. Pass me the Newspeak dictionary, Winston…..
Does anyone know how many people are gettin UC in Manchester and whether they are restricting it to certain groups of claimants - if they are only paying a couple of hundred non disabled single jobseekers then I’m not surprised it’s an unqualified success!
(edited for spelling)
The DWP hasn’t released any numbers and won’t do so until sometime next year. The target in the first 6 months was about 7000 total claims but we don’t know whether or not it’s anywhere near that. All UC claimants are single jobseekers but if their circumstances change they stay on UC so different groups are starting to appear, very slowly. I believe most UC claimants are non-dependents making their first claim for benefit, although some are in rented accomodation (no mortage payers are included). Todays grand rollout to one more jobcentre in London is still for single jobseekers as far as I know.
‘... the scheme has so far only been used in a handful of pilots in the north west of England, and recent estimates suggest just 1,000 people have claimed it so far.’ (BBC News today)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24694137
Most glaciers are rolling out at a faster rate than Universal Credit.
on 5 september, the DWP said it was going to publish stats on UC pathfinder by the end of year - were responding to the National Audit Office report on UC which said there had been about 1,000 claims.
here’s rightsnet news story on it -
and dwp statement -
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics
Here is an extract from the DWP press statement on 5th September referring to the National Audit Report:
“On 5 September 2013, the National Audit Office (NAO) released a report Universal Credit: early progress that includes an approximate figure for the cumulative number of new claims for Universal Credit. This is an estimate based on management information that is intended to give an indication of the number of people who have gone through the Universal Credit claims process. It does not form part of DWP’s official statistics.”
This is the only reference to 1000 UC claimants that I’ve seen. I don’t know what information this estimate is based on, other that it approximates to the number of claims that would have been in payment at that time if everything was going to plan (ie it is simply stating a target figure, which could have no basis in reality). The number of actual claims should have been higher, even then, because it takes about 5 weeks for a claim to be put into payment.
I can only assume the BBC is quoting that report, because I’m not aware of any official figures being released yet.
i agree - i think that must be where bbc got the figure from.
And it was all going so smoothly as recently as April this year…...
“The first claimants to Universal Credit will be single jobseekers. Around 7000 people are expected to get Universal Credit during the pathfinder period.”
“because a decision was overturned does not mean that it was wrong”
top that folks.
See also news page today - more comedy from Lord Fraud as he dangles strings of pre-programmed cliches, non-answers and dubious stats before an underwhelmed House of Lords.
You will find out later about UC rollout so shut up, and the launch of the Tax Credits was a failure so ner-ner:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/131028-0001.htm#1310284000333