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Universal Credit as a key driver of rent arrears and debt among the needy

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Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Based on the patent falsehood* that most applicants for Universal Credit will be in receipt of one month of wages paid to them in arrears from a former employer, immediately prior to applying for Universal Credit, said benefit is paid one month in arrears but has a much longer waiting period of at least five weeks to several months,during which applicants receive no state support whatsoever.

My understanding is that the only help people without the means to support themselves during this preposterously long waiting period is an “advance” by way of a loan from the DWP, which has to be paid back later, possibly via deductions from meagre benefits themselves. Thus, unless I am mistaken, Universal Credit will inevitably drive the poorest and most hard pressed applicants into rent arrears and/or debt deliberately by design.

My questions therefore are:

(1)

Does any mechanism exist in Universal Credit to prevent the poorest and most vulnerable applicants from falling into rent arrears and/or debt, e.g., expediting delivery of entitlements so that the most desperate cases receive support much more quickly appropriate to their situation, or will legions of the poorest and most hard pressed citizens be driven into rent arrears and/or debt by Universal Credit itself?

(2)

It is my contention that the number of people not in possession of one month of wages forced to apply for Universal Credit will be much greater than amongst the general population. To assess the danger Universal Credit represents in respect to plummeting the poor and vulnerable into rent arrears and/or debt could you please tell me:

What percentage of Universal Credit applicants are not in receipt of one month of wages from former paid employment immediately prior to making application for Universal Credit?

(3)

When people are migrated from legacy benefits to Universal Credit (and so definitely cannot possibly be in possession of one month of wages from a former employer) will they be forced to suffer an extended “waiting period” without income, for five weeks to several months, before receiving their entitlements under the flaky new system?

The design of Universal Credit seems extraordinarily pernicious to me since the people who suffer most under the new system and are affected the most adversely are the poorest, most hard pressed and the most vulnerable citizens which seems wholly unjust and irresponsible in respect to the provision of social security in twenty-first century Great Britain.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Stephen Toy

* For example people paid a weekly wage, or doing piece work, casual workers, workers on temporary contracts, or individuals moving from one benefit to another, e.g., a carer moving from Carer's Allowance to Universal Credit after the death of the person they formerly cared for, will NOT be in possession of a month's wages before applying for Universal Credit. I can easily think of any number of similar examples of people forced to apply for Universal Credit who will not have the financial assets to survive during said benefit's ridiculously long waiting period and am amazed that such considerations did not occur to the DWP when designing Universal Credit in the first place.

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request.

You can expect a reply by 7 March 2017 unless I need to come back to you to clarify your request or the balance of the public interest test needs to be considered.

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request.

You can expect a reply by 7 March 2017 unless I need to come back to you to clarify your request or the balance of the public interest test needs to be considered.

Please ignore and delete my previous message to you as it did not contain your reference number (FoI 468). My apologies for any confusion that this may have caused you.

If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely

DWP Strategy FoI Team

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Your right to complain under the Freedom of Information Act

If you are not happy with this response you may request an internal review by e-mailing [DWP request email] or by writing to DWP, Central FoI Team,
Caxton House, Tothill Street, SW1H 9NA. Any review request should be submitted within two months of the date of this letter. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office for a decision. Generally the Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted our own complaints procedure. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF
www.ico.org.uk/Global/contact_us or telephone 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545745

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

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Please find attached our response to your recent Freedom of Information
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Yours sincerely
 
DWP Central Freedom of Information Team
 
 
 
 

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Dear DWP Strategy Freedom of Information,

Whether Universal Credit is getting people into work faster and keeping them in work longer is a sound bite that the DWP rolls out, like a mantra, whenever anybody criticises the new benefit. Getting people into work which offers a high enough rate of pay with enough hours a week to matter is definitely a cure for poverty but, based on available evidence, this is not what Universal Credit is doing on the ground: many people on Universal Credit move into poorly paid part-time work, or insecure work on zero-hour contracts or similar, which is NOT a cure for poverty, in point of fact in-work poverty is blooming in the United Kingdom like a poisonous rose, as I am sure the DWP is fully aware, and many of the people at food banks and suffering hardship are IN work not fully unemployed.

But that is by the by.

The poorest and most desperate applicants for Universal Credit are, factually and actually, being driven into rent arrears and debt because of the design of Universal Credit. There is no doubt about this whatsoever. In your reply you mention an "advance" that can be made to UC claimants facing the direst circumstances which, as you know, in not actually a more expeditious payment of Universal Credit but a loan which puts people into debt to the DWP and which must be repaid later, quite possibly by means of deductions from Universal Credit when it eventually gets paid to such applicants usually six or more weeks after application.

How can driving the poorest and most vulnerable Universal Credit claimants into debt and rent arrears help them get into work? Why is such obvious cruelty necessary? My understanding is that UC claimants are expected to spend 35 hours per week actively seeking employment, most of it self-funded, in which case surely reducing UC claimants to near destitution, in some cases to food banks and loan sharks, must have an extremely negative effect on their ability to job-seek and look for work effectively? If helping people into meaningful gainful employment is the aim of Universal Credit then driving the most disadvantaged applicants into rent arrears and debt because of Universal Credit's preposterous glacial delay in payment is perverse.

Does the DWP assert that delaying payment of essential support to Universal Credit applicants for weeks, or even months, has a positive effect on getting some people into work, despite driving others into rent arrears and debt, and this is why the policy hasn't been modified in order to make it more humane? Does Universal Credit deliberately plunge the poorest into debt, poverty and rent arrears because the DWP believes that such suffering will persuade them to re-enter the world of work sooner than otherwise?

In the beginning I imagined Universal Credit's patent flaws were mistakes which, when recognised, would eventually be modified and ameliorated because I didn't believe that anybody would contrive to do such awful things to the poorest and most desperate citizens of my country consciously and deliberately. But now I'm not so sure, especially as the DWP seems capable only of replies based on pat answers and boilerplate mantras.

Government used to be better than this.

I can't believe that the department will be able to get away with this kind of behaviour forever, least of all when the full horror of Universal Credit become publicly scrutinised when millions of people, eventually, possibly, begin to receive it. Dealing with the nastiest elements of Universal Credit now, voluntarily, would do credit to the DWP. Based on the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions blithe and debonair unconcern in respect to Universal Credit's shortcomings I doubt that this will happen, sadly.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Toy

DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request.

You can expect a reply by 25 April 2017 unless I need to come back to you to clarify your request or the balance of the public interest test needs to be considered.

If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely

DWP Strategy FoI Team

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Your right to complain under the Freedom of Information Act

If you are not happy with this response you may request an internal review by e-mailing [DWP request email] or by writing to DWP, Central FoI Team,
Caxton House, Tothill Street, SW1H 9NA. Any review request should be submitted within two months of the date of this letter. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office for a decision. Generally the Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted our own complaints procedure. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF
www.ico.org.uk/Global/contact_us or telephone 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545745

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

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Please accept our apologies for the delay and see the attached reply to your Freedom of Information request.
 

Yours sincerely
 
DWP Strategy FoI Team

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Del please sign in and let everyone know.