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-   -   Universal Credit (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33698667)

denphone 06-01-2019 06:57
Re: Universal Credit
 
Threat of revolt forces rethink of Universal Credit.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ut-pilot-study

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46772901

Quote:
The roll-out of the government’s flagship welfare programme is to be overhauled amid dire warnings about its impact on the vulnerable, the Observer understands.
Quote:
Frank Field, chairman of the work and pensions select committee, which has raised a series of concerns about universal credit, said: “The government seems finally to have woken up to the human catastrophe that was waiting to happen under its ill-formed plans for moving people on to universal credit.”
Quote:
The limited pilot paves the way for the process to be further slowed should problems emerge. She has already told MPs that she will not rush to meet arbitrary timetables. The process, which is already six and a half years behind its original schedule, is due to be completed by the end of 2023.

Maggy 06-01-2019 10:14
Re: Universal Credit
 
UC is a possibly great idea ruined by poor decision making and a lack of oversight and foresight. This does seem to be a recurring situation with this government/civil service. If only they could make themselves abandon using proven poor working organisations like Crapita and GS4 and look for better alternatives and using better oversight to pick good companies. The recent ferry company choice for Brexit doesn't point to this changing any time soon.

Mr K 06-01-2019 10:47
Re: Universal Credit
 
Watched ' I, Daniel Blake' yesterday. Bloody depressing, but more so since it reflects reality. There is a massive loophole of people who fall through the net, can't fill forms, no fixed abode and can't claim benefits. The number of homeless dieing increasing is a national scandal in this day and age.

denphone 06-01-2019 11:02
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggy J (Post 35977974)
UC is a possibly great idea ruined by poor decision making and a lack of oversight and foresight. This does seem to be a recurring situation with this government/civil service. If only they could make themselves abandon using proven poor working organisations like Crapita and GS4 and look for better alternatives and using better oversight to pick good companies. The recent ferry company choice for Brexit doesn't point to this changing any time soon.
The sad thing is they are awarding more contracts to these type of companies then before.

---------- Post added at 10:02 ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggy J (Post 35977974)
UC is a possibly great idea ruined by poor decision making and a lack of oversight and foresight. This does seem to be a recurring situation with this government/civil service. If only they could make themselves abandon using proven poor working organisations like Crapita and GS4 and look for better alternatives and using better oversight to pick good companies. The recent ferry company choice for Brexit doesn't point to this changing any time soon.
No due diligence done and they copied and pasted its website T&Cs from a takeaway company.:rolleyes:

techguyone 06-01-2019 12:24
Re: Universal Credit
 
The 2 biggest problems seem to revolve around the payment of rent to the claimant direct rather than to the landlord (madness) and the arbitrarily 6? 4? week enforced 'waiting time' at the start, what's that all about? Is it needed, how are people with little/no savings supposed to to go without any funds for that time period without any consequence, struggling to understand why that decision was made.

Angua 06-01-2019 12:41
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggy J (Post 35977974)
UC is a possibly great idea ruined by poor decision making and a lack of oversight and foresight. This does seem to be a recurring situation with this government/civil service. If only they could make themselves abandon using proven poor working organisations like Crapita and GS4 and look for better alternatives and using better oversight to pick good companies. The recent ferry company choice for Brexit doesn't point to this changing any time soon.
One of the biggest problems was using UC in an attempt to cut the number of claimants. Rather than looking at all the different benefits and ensuring they has a single claim point first, then streamlining the benefits thereafter.

So now people in supported housing still claim HB, where others claim the housing element of UC.

nomadking 06-01-2019 13:23
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by techguyone (Post 35977985)
The 2 biggest problems seem to revolve around the payment of rent to the claimant direct rather than to the landlord (madness) and the arbitrarily 6? 4? week enforced 'waiting time' at the start, what's that all about? Is it needed, how are people with little/no savings supposed to to go without any funds for that time period without any consequence, struggling to understand why that decision was made.
For many people rent was always paid direct to the claimant/tenant. No different to the situation they would be in if they were working.


Where people are moving from being employed and paid monthly to being on benefits, then they will usually have a months worth of money, either in their pocket or yet to come. Nothing that new in there being a delay.


A central problem is that people are too unwilling to do any budgeting and if they have £1 in their pocket they will spend it, rather than consider that they might need it next week. An example is where rent is paid out weekly, but UC payments are monthly. There is a mismatch between money having to go out and money for rent coming in.


The idea of a single working-age benefit was put forward in a DWP report from 2009.

techguyone 06-01-2019 13:49
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking (Post 35978012)
For many people rent was always paid direct to the claimant/tenant. No different to the situation they would be in if they were working.


Where people are moving from being employed and paid monthly to being on benefits, then they will usually have a months worth of money, either in their pocket or yet to come. Nothing that new in there being a delay.


A central problem is that people are too unwilling to do any budgeting and if they have £1 in their pocket they will spend it, rather than consider that they might need it next week. An example is where rent is paid out weekly, but UC payments are monthly. There is a mismatch between money having to go out and money for rent coming in.


The idea of a single working-age benefit was put forward in a DWP report from 2009.
According to what you posted then, UC is absolutely fine and there's zero issues with it then.... Clearly not.

nomadking 06-01-2019 14:04
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by techguyone (Post 35978015)
According to what you posted then, UC is absolutely fine and there's zero issues with it then.... Clearly not.
It's a matter of putting things in the proper perspective. As I pointed out many people have ALWAYS received housing benefit money directly, so not a new issue and is unrelated to UC. The increase in the number of people getting direct payments started in 2008 under Labour.


The weekly rent with monthly benefit situation means that they have to keep aside a bit of the monthly payment to pay for the 5th week rent payment that occurs in certain months. No different to being in a monthly paid job.That is the rationale behind monthly payments.


Perhaps there needs to be a faster initial assessment where it can quickly be determined that they are entitled to some money, but the exact amount will take longer to establish. That could mean a smaller amount could be paid out as once(or may still) existed with housing benefit, ie if the council took longer than 2 weeks, you received £50/week in the meantime.

RichardCoulter 06-01-2019 16:30
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking (Post 35978017)
It's a matter of putting things in the proper perspective. As I pointed out many people have ALWAYS received housing benefit money directly, so not a new issue and is unrelated to UC. The increase in the number of people getting direct payments started in 2008 under Labour.


The weekly rent with monthly benefit situation means that they have to keep aside a bit of the monthly payment to pay for the 5th week rent payment that occurs in certain months. No different to being in a monthly paid job.That is the rationale behind monthly payments.


Perhaps there needs to be a faster initial assessment where it can quickly be determined that they are entitled to some money, but the exact amount will take longer to establish. That could mean a smaller amount could be paid out as once(or may still) existed with housing benefit, ie if the council took longer than 2 weeks, you received £50/week in the meantime.
What was done by Labour in 2008 to increase more payments direct to claimants? :confused:

Under HB the claimant had the choice of who the money went to, under UC it's paid to the claimant regardless (unless they are over 8 weeks in arrears). The old system was better as claimants with finely tuned budgets or who have difficulties budgeting for whatever reason, could have their rent paid directly to the landlord to prevent arrears building up.

Under HB there has always been provision to make a 'payment on account' for private and housing association tenants whilst the claim is properly assessed.

nomadking 06-01-2019 18:53
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter (Post 35978038)
What was done by Labour in 2008 to increase more payments direct to claimants? :confused:

Under HB the claimant had the choice of who the money went to, under UC it's paid to the claimant regardless (unless they are over 8 weeks in arrears). The old system was better as claimants with finely tuned budgets or who have difficulties budgeting for whatever reason, could have their rent paid directly to the landlord to prevent arrears building up.

Under HB there has always been provision to make a 'payment on account' for private and housing association tenants whilst the claim is properly assessed.
Parliamentary Briefing Paper May 2013
Quote:
The Labour Government piloted a new flat-rate Local Housing Allowance (LHA) based on area and family size in 9 local authorities from November 2003 (later rising to 18 authorities). Alongside this flat-rate allowance the Government required these pathfinder authorities to only pay HB direct to private landlords in certain limited cases. It had increasingly become the norm for landlords to require tenants claiming Housing Benefit (HB) to agree to the benefit being paid direct to them as a condition of granting a tenancy.
Subsequently the LHA was introduced for all new HB claimants in the deregulated private rented sector from 7 April 2008 – except in certain exceptional cases this benefit is paid direct to claimants. This move away from paying HB direct to landlords is controversial – a key concern of landlords is that it has resulted in increased rent arrears. Direct payments to claimants will continue when the Universal Credit is phased in (phasing is expected to begin in October 2013).
Being £10/week adrift might be a budgeting issue, but £100+/week isn't. They are all too often repeat offenders "stealing" the money instead. Otherwise people would quickly realise they have to do something about, but they don't.


HB was being paid direct to many claimants long before 2008 or 2003.

Shelter report Dec 2004
Quote:
It takes, on average, 33 working days to process a new Housing
Benefit claim. The worst-performing authorities take more than
100 working days, leading to rent arrears and evictions.
Quote:
In the nine original Pathfinder areas for the LHA scheme, 90 per cent of tenants now have Housing Benefit paid direct to them, compared
with 50 per cent before the scheme started.
Even before any introduction of LHA, 50% had HB paid direct to them.

Angua 06-01-2019 20:22
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking (Post 35978067)
Parliamentary Briefing Paper May 2013
Being £10/week adrift might be a budgeting issue, but £100+/week isn't. They are all too often repeat offenders "stealing" the money instead. Otherwise people would quickly realise they have to do something about, but they don't.


HB was being paid direct to many claimants long before 2008 or 2003.

Shelter report Dec 2004

Even before any introduction of LHA, 50% had HB paid direct to them.
The biggest issue now is the backdating only goes back a month from the first date of claim. So now people have the HB application ready to go when a tenancy is signed.

nomadking 06-01-2019 20:44
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Angua (Post 35978078)
The biggest issue now is the backdating only goes back a month from the first date of claim. So now people have the HB application ready to go when a tenancy is signed.
Incorrect and not related to UC. The one month backdating is for BEFORE the date of claim.
Citizen's Advice.

Quote:
You can get backdated Housing Benefit for one month if you can show you have a good reason for not claiming earlier, for example, you were given wrong advice. You also have to show that you were entitled to Housing Benefit throughout the period of backdating – that you were paying rent, and your income was low enough.

denphone 11-01-2019 08:36
Re: Universal Credit
 
Benefits freeze likely to end in 2020, says Amber Rudd.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ays-amber-rudd

Quote:
Amber Rudd suggested the benefits freeze, which was introduced by the former chancellor George Osborne in 2015, may not be continued when it becomes due for renewal in 2020.
U-turn on two-child cap on benefit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46827301

Quote:
The work and pensions secretary has ditched plans to extend a benefits cap on families of more than two children.
Quote:
Amber Rudd said those with children born before the system was introduced would remain exempt, as she aimed to ensure it was "compassionate and fair".

Mr K 11-01-2019 11:05
Re: Universal Credit
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by denphone (Post 35978790)
Benefits freeze likely to end in 2020, says Amber Rudd.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ays-amber-rudd



U-turn on two-child cap on benefit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46827301
The Govt. seem to be making a lot of concessions this week for some reason...:rolleyes:


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