‘Conditionality works’, Senior Responsible Owner for universal credit tells House of Lords Committee

However, research indicates that supporting people to have 'conversations with employers' is a more effective intervention than 'in-work conditionality, Neil Couling says

'Conditionality works', the Senior Responsible Owner for universal credit Neil Couling has told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee.

Giving evidence to the Committee on 2 June 2020, in relation to its inquiry into the economics of universal credit, Mr Couling confirmed that 'work search help' is being provided to universal credit claimants, but that no sanctions are being applied at this time as to do so would be 'absurd in the current circumstances' of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, Mr Couling said -

'Conditionality works ... The evidence is that an active labour market, with conditionality as part of it, works in returning people to employment.'

Acknowledging that the Department is 'a bit late' on its promise to the Work and Pensions Committee, given in February 2019, to provide the results of an evaluation of the effectiveness of sanctions, Mr Couling assured the House of Lords Committee that he would send copies of the research evidence to it that week and the evaluation 'as soon as we can'.

However, asked about the Department's intention to introduce in-work conditionality by 2021, Mr Couling commented - 

'I think the Secretary of State has just launched a commission to advise on in-work conditionality. We have done two lots of research as a department, and we have published one of them. We may have published both - I cannot remember exactly - on our findings from the application of some conditionality.

I think that the research shows that supporting people in employment to have conversations with employers to increase hours looks to be a better intervention than the application of extra conditionality. There is a bit of a myth out there that, somehow, we are doing this now, and I use this platform to say that we are not applying in-work conditionality and were not doing so before COVID-19 hit.'

The minutes of the evidence session before the Economic Affairs Committee are available from parliament.uk