Universal Credit is, supposedly, on its way. I admit I think the chance that it will work is remote. Fan that I am of IT, this feels like a step too far, too fast to deliver. I'm not alone in worrying about the impact of potential failure.
But let's leave the technical problems aside for a minute. This Universal Credit is meant to replace the following payments:
- income-based Jobseeker's Allowance
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance
- Income Support
- Child Tax Credits
- Working Tax Credits
- Housing Benefit.
Well if it did it should in the process ensure that it delivers a higher take up rate for these benefits. At present these are low, no doubt because of the complexity of the many benefits, and the difficulty of applying for many people who find all bureaucracy hard to handle. The result is, as the DWP estimate, that up to £12.3 billion a year is not being claimed in benefits now by people who are entitled to receive them.
Will Universal Credit reduce that gap? I can't see how, especially when access to the credit is dependent on making on an line application which far too many who have entitlement to receive it will not be able to do so.
I spend a lot of time talking about the tax gap, but this benefits gap is as worrying and like the tax gap, I fear nothing is really being done to solve it.
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I’ve just been sent this comment
Having looked at the links I recommend them
“I’ve just read your new blog on Universal Credit. There are several other issues that might interest you: can I invite you to look at some of the things I’ve been posting about the system? I”ve covered, e.g.the claims on fraud and error at
http://paulspicker.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/reducing-fraud-and-error/
while there are more general comments on the viability of the system at
http://paulspicker.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/the-universal-credit/
http://paulspicker.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/glitches-in-universal-credit/
http://paulspicker.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/getting-ready-for-a-crash/
Paul Spicker
Professor of Public Policy
Aberdeen Business School”
You want more people to receive benefits? I suspect that one reason for the benefit gap is that many people are too proud to go on welfare and would rather provide for themselves.
It is fortunate that many people do not apply for benefits, if they did the Government’s debt would be $12 billion a year worse than it is at present.
Of course I want people to claim benefits when they are due just as I wan people to pay tax when it is owing
Why on earth not?
Is the £12.3 billion unclaimed just benefits from the DWP, or all state benefits?
DWP
So the overall figure will be higher
Have you been reading Speye Joe on the benefits cap? I doubt it from what you say. I haven’t got a link to hand but I’ll pop back here with one later as I follow him on Twitter. He’s gone into this in depth and says a) the Overall Benefits Cap is really a housing benefits cap, which it is, and b) people’s entitlements will first have to be calculated by the DWP so the DWP can set that figure against the OBC and make the appropriate deduction from their HB so people only get benefits up to the level of the cap. Well, everyone applying for UC (and let’s set aside the issue that the tech isn’t anywhere near ready for now) will have their proper benefit entitlement worked out for them by the DWP. This is absolutely not the case now, in fact I saw a tweet from an ex-DWP worker saying they were under instruction not to advise people about benefits they may be entitled to but not claiming.
Said I’d be back! Here’s something from Joe on the bedroom tax and reputation bedroom tax etc and here he is on IDS and his lying ways http://speye.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/ids-on-welfare-reform-how-do-i-lie-to-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ and some acerbic observations on the Overall Benefits Cap which means families over a certain size simply won’t be able to live in the UK unless they’re extremely wealthy http://speye.wordpress.com/2012/11/. He goes into all this stuff in far greater detail than anyone else I know of. He predicts social disaster, of course.