Universal Credits- a new nightmare

That really is disgusting! How the hell has it been allowed to fall so far behind?

It was a nightmare from the beginning. The IT system could not cope with the transition from previous benefit to UC. The training materials for staff were at least 2 years late, although trainers were waiting for the work. The first pilot was made using a very small number of claimants who were single people with fairly simple circumstances. And the claims were managed cleric ally. Reasons are ministers/top civil servants losing face??? "You may choose to think that. I could not possibly comment"

It's a ridiculous system. Badly organised and badly managed. The current system is already a minefield but this is far worse.

It seems some the regions who will be changed over to U C first are among the most deprived in the country. They could be faced with having no money at Xmas time to provide for their families. There is often a lot of bad feeling about people on benefits but there will always be people who for various reasons need help and can't provide for themselves. These people shouldn't be treat like scroungers.

Even if 50% of claimants were scroungers (which they aren't) it would be ludicrous to try to deal with the situation in this completely incompetent way.

You can understand the idea but I still think Basic Income does what they are trying to achieve but better.

I think we will see deaths - how many God only knows - before they admit UC is not fit for purpose.

This is the JRF summary of their Briefing document. the full document is downloadable from here too. This include information on:

*Risk of destitution while people wait for a first UC payment
*Benefit changes pushing up child poverty
*An employment support deal for Metro Mayors
*Declining living standards for some working families

The politics of this for me sits squarely on the idea the Conservatives have persuade the country is a truth - that the economy is safer in their hands.

What I want to know is why so many people support the economy that makes the wealthy safe and destroys those in low income jobs or unable to work? That is not a safe economy; it is a destructive, selfish economy that only looks after a small percentage. I think May, although incompetent to run a government, sees that but is mired in her Tory beliefs even they have proved to be so wrong.

S has been receiving UC for about 2 yrs now it was only recently that I discovered our little backwater is ahead of it's time.
The 6 wk wait is a problem in its self.

I remember years ago teaching in a school in an area where many families were on benefits. Children would often come to school having not eaten since their school lunch the day before. It was Giro day and mum had no money until it came. Some of these people were unable to budget for a full week they will never manage for 6 weeks.

Do they have plans in place for those on housing benefit and working tax credits or is that going to be abolished? I know very little about the benefits system but we have a family member who does need to use them - I act as the back up if things go wrong but I am wondering for just how long as prices rise etc.
I would love to know where all the jobs are. Argos want night shift workers for the Christmas period but apart from being a night shift it is a zero hours contract so not suitable at all for a family man who is the only wage earner.

It is a ludicrous system. I have just read on another thread, how browsing in a dept. store can result in items looked at being flagged up on your phone and yet it takes 6 weeks or more to deliver benefits that are essential.

My son has addiction problems and has come home to recover, he has had no benefits ever, always worked, even when very ill last year his tax bill was £8000. Yet I am left to pay the costs of his medications and trips to the chemist daily for it and everything else. Just our bad luck we are told, that we live in rural area and his fares to the chemist would be more than he would receive (he is very ill and not well enough for transport or cycle) and so in built in everything in the potential for failure.

It was £40 in taxi to job centre and plenty of other taxis fares have had to be paid, out of my pension.

I do not begrudge him a penny, and acknowledge that his problem is by and large self inflicted, but do we want people to recover or not??????

You have to have a decent level of resources to claim anything now. How is that assumption arrived at?

It's all going Welshwife this Universal Credit thing is being trialled before being inflicted on the whole country. Basically people wait a minimum of 6 weeks before getting any money and some wait even longer. They can apply for a loan to cover the 6 weeks but they have to know the system and then they get less benefit until the loan is paid off. It's driving people into debt and to food banks.

I'm terrified; rumour has it that my area is soon to be targeted for UC. That means that my Housing Benefit, ESA, PIP and Council Tax will all be rolled into one and if I have to wait 6 weeks, I fear that my tenancy, health and welfare will be at very serious. Risk. I am not a scrounger and it has taken me 15 years to arrive at this stage of a financial and medical brick wall. Food banks are fine - IF you can get to; my nearest is 15 miles away and my wheelchair won't go that far! I will however, start a new thread on how you can speed things up a bit: in theory

That article is over a year old

It would be nice if we could say that, in that year, things have been improved. But they haven't.

I remember from years back the difficulty in changing from weekly wages to monthly salary. If you ran out of money on a Wednesday, you could hang on till Friday, but if you ran short on the 18th of the month, and had to wait till the end it was impossible to avoid going into debt.
At least they could have made the monthly payments midmonth, but this would not have saved the exchequer as much as making people wait till the end.
The system is designed by people who can not imagine not having spare cash to last a few weeks.

Even if you are good at budgeting, week to week, a 6 week spell of no money coming in would be disastrous if you have already used any savings you had.

This is supposed to be social security not social torture, but torture is what is being given out.

This reminds me of the chaos caused by the introduction of tax credits - remember? Dawn Primarolo and Tony Blair (yes, him) apologised for causing "hardship & distress" by mismanagement of the scheme.
Obviously lessons have not been learned - and it's always those less able to deal with the problems who end up having to face them.
"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose"

When I started work for the Civil Service in 1989 I had just finished a College Course as a Mature Student. My first 3 months salary were split into 2 payments, one at the end of the month the other halfway through to help with budgeting.

I am on various Benefits now due to poor health, I dread UC as at the moment I get payments throughout the month which helps with dealing with bills & shopping. Another "light bulb moment" from some-one who doesn't understand the reality.

Even Iain Duncan Smith resigned over the benefit reforms......

I worked in DHSS, as a CO in Sickness/Maternity benefits. The same office held Income Support, Retirement and Death benefits departments and once we had people's NI contributions information, we knew exactly who would get what each week and if any issue arose, the information was shared across sections. I'm certain that UB Departments were the same. Now they've made the situation so much complicated and it feels really harsh and unfair.

When i worked in a "dole" office people were paid weekly. Then it was changed to fort nightly. This caused extreme distress and hardship. A client could request to be paid weekly still but this was not encouraged. I was told by my line manager, "Ask them if they've tried cashing their giro, then putting half of it in an envelope and not opening it u til the second week" I bet they'd never thought of that! You can imagine the response!

I am a volunteer with the CAB. A nightmare.
Thanks to the incompetent Ian Duncan Smith.
I bet he will receive a Knighthood!
Ho many disabled people were driven to suicide?

While people are always quick to complain about the benefit system, let's remember that someone is going out to work ( probably) full time and not claiming benefits to pay for it. I begrudge my taxes going to pay for drug addicts, people who claim they are too fat to work, people who keep on having children they claim they can't afford to feed while they sit on their sofa smoking and watching sky tv and looking at their smart phones etc.

While there are of course genuine cases like those born with a disability, although even that doesn't seem to stop some becoming an Olympic champion, there are many more who play the system. If you make poor choices in life- don't pay attention in school, get pregnant by a rotter, start an addiction and so on, I don't see why it should be the tax payers' problem.