I'd urge you to watch BBC Panorama's The Universal Credit Crisis , especially if you’re a Tory that’s hellbent on forcing through Universal Credit. Some revelations will shock people outside of their normal political bubble. Hard to watch and upsetting. A complicated system leaving the vulnerable behind, mission accomplished as far as the government is concerned. These decisions will come back and hant them and cost them more votes than they think.
Universal Credit combines six benefits, including housing benefit, into one monthly payment.
The programme finds people owe two and a half times more than on existing benefits. Universal Credit claimants are forced to sell their possessions in order to survive. Universal Credit was introduced in 2013 and continues to cause hardship, debt and food bank use across Britain - while the Tories and DWP remain in denial.
As the government's controversial new benefits system, universal credit, is rolled out, Panorama is with families as they struggle with their claims. The programme follows one council as it deals with mounting rent arrears and tenants in crisis. The government has responded to criticism of the new system by announcing more funding, but is it too little too late?
I don’t think there’s any question that it is, food bank use has already gone up 13% due to problems with universal credit. And the top reason for people using food banks has been delays and problems with getting benefits. lets be honest nobody seems to know what's going on anymore. Claimants across the country are finding their payments being arbitrally cut month in, month out, with no explanation. Random debts are imposed and retrieved with minimum information. Already as it is claimants, living on a shoestring, this process I fear will make things far worse.The Conservatives claim UC is designed to help help people into work by ensuring they are better off working than the unemployed but whatever they say the number of families who are in work but still living below the poverty line is continuing to rise. As a result, inequality increases too, with the poorest among us being left behind. All because of their policies.
The programme reveals that in Flintshire in North Wales, one of the first areas in the UK to receive the new system, the amount of rent owed to the council by people on Universal Credit is £1,424 in average – or six times the amount owed by those on the existing system.
The local authority says evictions in the county are up by 55% compared to the same time last year, and it has spent an extra £270,000 on advice staff to cope with the increasing numbers of people needing help. The figures were based on Freedom of Information responses from around 130 councils that manage social housing.
The programme really scraped the surface on the design faults within this policy, many things are changed as an after thought because the policy wasn't properly thought through and the administration is so bad as is the training which means that those that should be helping have not got a clue about the constant changes and are misinforming claimants causing further chaos with long waits on the phone which campaigners call the 'Vivaldi Line.'
Currently too.Esther McVey and her department are trying to make charities and private contractors that work with the DWP sign gagging orders preventing them from criticising McVey or damaging her reputation, but Universal Credit is a disgrace especially as we are one of the richest countries in the world.It is simply a recipe for disaster that is only fit for the waste basket.The government is coming under very serious pressure because of universal credit, and I hope this programme adds to it even more.
If you missed the programme, here it is.
Earlier post on Universal Credit here https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-real-impact-of-universal-credit.html
