From Rachel Reeves:
Dear Iain,
At your party conference you announced your intention to
“accelerate the delivery of Universal Credit … from the New Year, bringing
forward the national roll-out through 2015/16 to every community across Great
Britain”.
As 985,920 fewer people receiving are Universal Credit than
you originally said would be claiming the new benefit by April 2014,
acceleration is clearly necessary.
However, given the litany of problems with the delivery of
this scheme to date, and the £130m of public money wasted on IT, it would be
extremely worrying if even the limited expansion of the scheme you have
announced was being driven more by a political timetable than by due
concern for effective and efficient delivery.
Yesterday I visited the North West to find out first-hand
how the Universal Credit pathfinders had been working in practice.
I met with
local authorities, the voluntary sector, housing providers and work programme
contractors as well as staff and managers at the Jobcentre in Ashton-under-Lyme,
which as you know has had the longest experience of handling Universal Credit
claims.
I would like to take this opportunity to record my gratitude and
appreciation for the time they took to meet me and I am grateful also to you
and officials at the DWP for helping to arrange this.
These meetings confirmed to me that the principle of
Universal Credit is a good one that could bring real benefits to claimants,
communities and taxpayers. It was also very clear that professionals across the
public, private and voluntary sectors in these areas are working extremely hard
to make Universal Credit a success.
However it was also clear that there remain a range of
serious problems with the current operation of Universal Credit which risk
being replicated and multiplied across the country on a far larger scale if
Universal Credit unless they are resolved.
The serious problems that were raised with me included:
• the IT
systems and related work processes around Universal Credit claims remain
“clunky”, poor at handling complex or dynamic circumstances, and prone to
delays and mistakes in processing claims and making payments.
• a
significant level of system error which currently needs to be identified and
corrected through costly manual checks.
•
particular problems and high rates of error associated with the incorporation
of the housing costs element of Universal Credit.
• concerns that
claimants had not been informed of, or had difficulty in accessing, budgeting
support, advance payments or alternative payment arrangements.
• an
extremely high incidence of rent arrears that implied very substantial
financial and administrative burdens for housing providers as caseloads
increase.
• the
meaning of “in-work conditionality” and how in-work support will be delivered
by jobcentres remains extremely unclear despite the fact that numbers of
Universal Credit claimants in work will increase as the caseload expands and
matures and the integral importance of this element to the programme’s aim of
providing a different set of incentives to progress in work and increase
working hours
• joint-working
between the DWP and relevant local partners is patchy and there is poor
data-sharing between the two, with little automatic integration of information
on claimants and their circumstances.
The problems which I was told about during my visit are
leading to concerns about the risks to claimants and additional costs to the
public purse when Universal Credit is rolled out in other parts of the country.
Therefore I am writing today to ask that you give us clarity and assurance on
the following key issues:
1. What guarantee can you give that the IT systems for
Universal Credit will not increase levels of error and delays in processing
claims, payments and changes of circumstances?
2. What is your estimate of the current cost of manual
processes for identifying and rectifying system errors, and how will you
prevent this increasing as the caseload expands?
3. Will you publish a full evaluation of the impact of
including new claims with a housing cost element in current Pathfinder areas
before introducing Universal Credit to new areas?
4. Will you guarantee that all Universal Credit claimants will
be fully informed of their options for budgeting support, advance payments and
alternative payment arrangements, and set strict and published limits for the
time taken to process and deliver on requests made?
5. What are the current levels of awareness and take up of
options for budgeting support, advance payments and alternative payment
arrangements among current claimants?
6. What increases in levels of rent arrears and related
proceedings do you anticipate with the increasing incorporation of housing cost
elements into the Universal Credit caseload?
7. How has “in work conditionality” been delivered in practice
so far? What are the outcomes and lessons of its implementation so far? How
will it be rolled out nationally?
8. What information on claimants and the circumstances and
their partners is currently shared automatically between the DWP and relevant
partners, and what can only be shared manually? What information cannot be
provided even on request?
9. What steps will you take to ensure that joint working
between the DWP and relevant partners is improved before introducing Universal
Credit in new areas?
10. Will local authorities and voluntary sector partners in
every area receive the same level of additional funding and support from the
DWP for supporting the introduction of Universal Credit as has been available
to Pathfinders? What has been the cost of this, and what will be the cost of
extending it to all areas of the country?
And following your written ministerial statement of 13
October:
11. What IT system will underpin the full national roll-out,
if, as you have stated, testing of the “enhanced digital service” is to start
“later this year” in a “limited local area?
12. What exactly has been “assured by the Major Projects
Authority and signed off by HM Treasury”, especially give the statement that
“we will keep all longer-term plans under review.
13. When will a long-term plan for the full-implementation of
Universal Credit be published?
14. How many people will be on universal credit by 2015, 2016,
2017 and 2018?
15. By what date will universal credit be rolled out entirely
across the country?
16. By what date will the migration of all legacy benefits have
been completed?
I look forward to hearing from you.
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