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What does everyone think of Universal credit?

saffysaffy6262
saffysaffy6262 Community member Posts: 1 Listener
edited October 2017 in Universal Credit (UC)
Hi what does everyone think of Universal credit and has it greatly effected you?
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Comments

  • Geoark
    Geoark Community member Posts: 1,463 Disability Gamechanger
    Hello @saffysaffy6262 and welcome to the community.

    Concept wise I think it is a very good idea. In terms of how it has been delivered on the other hand has been a complete nightmare.

    This has been demonstrated more so in the amount of rent arrears for those on Universal Credit.

    "The Peabody Group, a housing association that owns and manages more than 55,000 homes in London and the south-east, said the rate of rent arrears among its tenants on universal credit was three times greater than those not on the new benefit. It said the average level of arrears for those on universal credit was £1,400 per household.

    Halton Housing Trust, which owns and manages 7,000 homes in Cheshire, said that while just 17% of its customers were receiving universal credit, they owed 47% of all its outstanding arrears. “We are also seeing an increased risk of claimants who are unable to sustain their tenancy due to increased rent arrears,” it said." - Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/16/universal-credit-rent-arrears-soar 

    I certainly do not feel the UC should be rolled out further until the processing issues have been resolved, and if they cannot be resolved should be scrapped.

    I also believe that where claimants are moving from fortnightly payments an integration payment should be made half way through the expected waiting period, which does not have to be repaid, unless you were not due to that money at the time, ie working. This would not stop all the hardship being faced but would stop the worst. 

    As an individual I stood alone.
    As a member of a group I did things.
    As part of a community I helped to create change!

  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,671 Disability Gamechanger
    I think there are a lot of people concerned about Universal Credit, it is certainly something I am trying to learn more about so we can support community members. 

    WHat are your thoughts @saffysaffy6262

    Scope
    Senior online community officer
  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,671 Disability Gamechanger
    This is the info we have on Universal Credit
    Scope
    Senior online community officer
  • sunflower23
    sunflower23 Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    we Was on income support and we have now moved and get universal credits 
    land we are worst off  they have cut the  allowances out of it  and you have to go on line to fill out your journel when they sent you a message or they can stop your money  thanks sunflower 
  • OutOfTheWorld99
    OutOfTheWorld99 Community member Posts: 36 Courageous
    edited February 2018
    My view is this has been "invented" to give more control of the state passed onto the vulnerable.Its whole implementation was a complete mess and continues do so with people getting sanctioned all over the country for the most menial things not complying for example with their claimant agreement which is the affectively the old job  seekers agreement.There is case law to say that what the dwp keep hammering through everyone's head "do all these things or else! in the claimant commitment" or else, its political ideological **** and an excuse to gain control over peoples lives of which in some case are a real mess.Agree to everything they propose so the can get everyone working on minimum wage and claiming tax credits and still be under the banner of universal credit while "working."

    They should scrap it all and start thinking in the real world,that not enough jobs have been created inline with the basic cost of living and this will get progressively worse with the coming A I tech already taking hold in many businesses,cost is always the goal in business and they are going to get an endless supply of labor from the best route available being Jobcentre Plus's very own never ending claimant list.

    I would advise everyone whos just about to apply for this UC to thoroughly look into all the regulations associated with it as its better to be prepared as the job centre have a nasty habit of getting people to run around like headless chickens if they can.

    Full gov info here 
    https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit

    Stories from hell here
    http://www.computerweekly.com/news/252434188/Thousands-of-Universal-Credit-claimants-unable-to-use-Govuk-Verify-to-apply-for-benefits


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/embarrassed-woman-universal-credit-used-11952592

    Been on it 2 years and not impressed.
  • sunflower23
    sunflower23 Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    Hi So do you have too sent in fit notes like I do I have just come income support And on to universal credits and lost a lot of money per week
  • OutOfTheWorld99
    OutOfTheWorld99 Community member Posts: 36 Courageous
    edited February 2018
    Hi sunflower23,

    you will need to self cert for first 7 days on UC.

    Then if you are still sick on 8th day you will need to request one from your GP for a further 7 and repeat as necessary up to a combined total of 29 days after that i think they will send you out a form called UC50.

    Note: You are only allowed to have 2 individual combined periods of 7 days in 12 months while on UC, because everyone only gets sick for those amount of times...right!! No. sarcasm .  

    Any doubt with any of this then phone your local CAB for a discussion asap or go see GP and they are likely to know the a-z on this bureaucratic system.

    Going by what you wrote here "I have just come income support And on to universal credits and lost a lot of money per week" id definitely seek advice from CAB now.



  • sunflower23
    sunflower23 Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    H
    i I have a fit note for 3 months at the min   sunflower
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 1,741 Listener
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • sunflower23
    sunflower23 Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    Hi 
    yes it is mine is for 3 months website www.gov.uk/dwp/-fit-note-data
    have a look hope this helps thanks sunflower
  • OutOfTheWorld99
    OutOfTheWorld99 Community member Posts: 36 Courageous
    Hi Sunflower just tried this link and gave me a dead webpage ?

    This has a lot of info but not sure if is of help.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fit-note#history

    Sunflower did your Dr sign you off all in one go for 3 months ?
  • photographerswife
    photographerswife Community member Posts: 8 Listener
    I have to ring up UC today. My wife had come out of a care home 5 months ago and we was told she needed to claim UC, she was already on ESA support group. Full rates for DLA now PIP. I was on UC. she had a P45 for her a few days ago from ESA. Rang up to find out about it. Told to ring UC. Rang UC today to find out about it to find UC they do not have any details that she is disabled. Just that she did not need to look for work. I have told UC and she has been disabled and on ESA so they know.
    How and why do they make people who are end of life palliative care suffer.
  • Pippa_Alumni
    Pippa_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,793 Disability Gamechanger
    So sorry to hear about this, @photographerswife. As you say, chasing up benefits is the last thing you want to be doing in these kinds of circumstances. Please do let us know if we can offer any assistance.
  • photographerswife
    photographerswife Community member Posts: 8 Listener
    UC have sent me a message this afternoon just saying I have been overpaid ESA since 1st September 2016 and they will be claiming it all back. No mention that my wife should have been transferred from ESA support group to UC and paid the support group top up. I have messaged them back to phone me but not holding out much hope of that.
  • sunflower23
    sunflower23 Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    My hubby owns 650 on income support they over payed him they new we was going over to universal credits we have little coming in now but they take money back and we will still not hope with things sunflower x
  • sunflower23
    sunflower23 Community member Posts: 15 Connected
    Hi come a cross this 

    A series of government reports into the rollout of crisis-hit Universal Credit “barely mentions claimants”, MPs have revealed.


    Whitehall assessments of the flagship benefit reform don’t include details of the impact on many of those enrolled, analysis by a House of Commons committee found.

    The unpublished files, which date between 2012 and 2017, also show how promised savings from the £2bn programme are yet to materialise


    And the reports reveal how Universal Credit came close to “complete failure” in 2013, but has since recovered.


    Labour MP Frank Field, who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee which analysed the reports, said: “In the eighth year of the programme, the department itself has yet to produce the full business case for its own mega reform.”

    - ADVERTISEMENT -

    Top secret “Project Assessment Reviews” dated between 2012 and 2015 were handed to the committee alongside other more recent reports after a humiliating climbdown by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

    Ministers made the “exceptional” move to hand over the files late last year after a bruising Commons backlash.

    But in a damning assessment, MPs said on Thursday:

    • There remains “no evidence” that Universal Credit “makes work pay” for all types of claimants;
    • There’s “considerable uncertainty” about the reform’s costs and benefits;
    • And constant delays to the rollout appear to cancel out savings Universal Credit was meant to provide.

    Field added: “The programme managers appear to expect us, the public, and the minister responsible to take it on faith that [Universal Credit] will deliver the much improved employment outcomes they claim for the vast range of people – disabled, single parents, carers, the self-employed - who will claim [it].

    “They have produced no evidence to back up the key, central economic assumption of the biggest reform to our welfare system in 50 years.

    “The reviews, which barely mention claimants, are also shot through with management gobbledegook.”


    MPs blast Whitehall ‘gobbledegook’

    MPs have criticised the use of “cryptic and cliched” project management speak in the top secret Universal Credit files.

    Examples of the so-called “gobbledegook” included:

    • Describing meetings as “stand-ups”, “priority stand-ups”, a “scrum of scrums” and even a “Show and Tell”;
    • Referring to elements of Universal Credit as “stories”, “epic level stories” and “story groups”;
    • Explaining one team had “not fully matured its ability to accurately size incoming stories”;
    • And describing the successful completion of a task as “ensuring the safe landing of delivery”.

    The committee of MPs said the files were “no loss to the canon of published prose”.

    With the latest full assessment review dated 2015, the committee has called for greater transparency in future.

    Universal Credit replaces six benefits with one single monthly payment and will gradually roll out to all those on welfare by 2022.

    But it has been plagued by problems, including a perilous six week wait in payments, a surge in the use of loan sharks and food banks, and rip-off fees to call its helpline.

    Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey defended Universal Credit in the Commons last week, saying: “Universal Credit has had a positive impact since its start, as shown through published research and analysis.

    “Independent research shows us that people are  spending more time looking for work, applying for more jobs and even doing jobs they would not have considered doing before.


    Responding to the committee’s findings, Debbie Abrahams, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “After years of Tory Universal Credit chaos, this report proves once again that Universal Credit is not fit for purpose.

    “It is completely unacceptable that the Government has not provided any evidence to back up their repeated assertion that Universal Credit will help people into work, a key principle of the programme.

    “As Universal Credit is being rolled out, people in and out of work are being pushed into rent arrears, debt and poverty with food bank use rising as a consequence. Yet the Government’s own review barely mention claimants.”

    A spokesperson for the DWP said: “The Work and Pensions Select Committee has commended the department for running the Universal Credit programme ‘more professionally and efficiently with a collective sense of purpose’.

    “The committee acknowledges that the historic issues raised in this report have now been addressed and ‘substantial achievements’ have been delivered since 2013.

    “Universal Credit is the biggest modernisation of the welfare system in a generation and continues to be delivered in a safe and secure way.

    “The Infrastructure and Projects Authority has independently supported our test and learn approach, the improvements we continue to make and the recent expansion of the programme.”

    Meanwhile the battle for the reports to be fully published continues, with a tribunal set to decide whether the public should be able to access the files or not.

    The government has argued that the internal documents were only ever meant to be seen by ministers and releasing them publicly could mean future reports are less useful.

    HuffPost UK revealed last year how self-employed Universal Credit claimants have been told by officials they’d be “better off jobless”.

    And we reported how terminally ill Universal Credit claimants are routinely assigned “work coaches”, prompting condemnation from charities.

    Ministers announced on Wednesday that the government will change the threshold at which households with Universal Credit claims will receive free school meals.

    Labour said the plan could mean more than one million children go without a hot meal at school.


    MORE ON UNIVERSAL CREDIT

  • OutOfTheWorld99
    OutOfTheWorld99 Community member Posts: 36 Courageous
    Whole system designed by default for more stick and no carrot for all claimants.

    We have an dinosaur of a government filled with arrogance and one which lacks compassion and refuses to see the plight of others in a fair manner.
  • KPluca
    KPluca Community member Posts: 1 Listener
    had to move from gateshead to durham for my own safety as the local authority wouldnt help me with a violent neighbor im now on uc switched from esa im in debt more than 2000pound a year worse off and feel like takeing my own life my case worker talks to me with no understanding that im autistic saying stuff like she will learn along the way im sorry but i am not her personal teach aplliance i need help my uc housing benefit doesnt pay my rent fully so i have to pay it out of my uc end of the day once i pay my rent ive got 15piund to survive a month on looking forward to winter.  i can see a very sjarp rise in crime and suicide in the coming months/years. 
  • Stagecoach
    Stagecoach Community member Posts: 13 Connected
    Just received my universal credit award i.e. how much I am being awarded is a lot less than what I received on j.s.a , they no longer pay the disability add ons like you received on j.s.a , sent message to work coach stating that under u.c I am worse off ,what happened to no body will be worse off when switching , 
    Sent message to d.w.p that obviously they would be happy if I committed suicide ,as they could not give a Damn about you ,as long as they can get their Xmas bonus at end of year they are not intrested , same as politicians sent message to Theresa may ,, Jeremy corbyn ,, David Cameron ,, all with no reply ,goes to show they could not give a Damn about disabled people 
  • Waylay
    Waylay Community member, Scope Member Posts: 973 Pioneering
    Are you on PIP, @KPluca?

    @Stagecoach Also, the government just agreed to pay people who lost SDP when changing to UC a top-up.

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