I REMEMBER a sketch from Spitting Image in which Margaret Thatcher discusses the implementation of the Poll Tax in Scotland (she was depicted shaving) and referred to this as "testing the ground”. Three decades later this is still what is happening. Universal Credit has been another project implemented in the testing ground.
It is a welfare to work benefit whose capabilities far outstrip its ambition. Despite the Chancellor’s U-turns on Universal Credit in the Budget it will still cause widespread poverty and with it an increase in crime, mental illness, disenchantment for job seekers and damage to the overall economy. I write from experience, having been on Universal Credit for the last year.
The policy was flawed from the start with online claims only, a phone number that charged for using it, a six-week waiting period and the assumption that everyone in work was on monthly pay. Apply for an advance and it is deducted from your first benefit payment onwards, reducing the amount the claimant receives on a weekly basis. The claimant in Scotland has the option of getting their rent deducted from their benefit, but that was only a change made earlier this year . Prior to this rent arrears have soared, with claimants being hit harder as they have to pay rent arrears out of their Universal Credit, further reducing the claimant's weekly amount. During that six-week period the claimant's only other alternative to food banks is to seek a crisis grant from their local authority. However, this is discretionary and can only be granted three times in a 12-month rolling period.
When it comes to work, Universal Credit excels in accelerating people into poverty. If you are fortunate enough to receive a job offer during the six-week wait period you will receive no help in starting work or for living expenses. Only fares, clothing and or tools can be claimed for starting work. Despite Department of Work and Pensions guidelines, the claimant will not receive a change of circumstances advance for work or living expenses, even if they had been on a weekly wage. And if the claimant's last payments on a weekly wage impact their assessment period for Universal Credit they can wait up to eight weeks to receive a payment. If the claimant earns more than £2,600 in the last six months they are barred from applying for a budgeting advance to start work.
Universal Credit is designed to further compound the circular poverty trap of benefits and as a result of its implementation fewer people will be in work, leading to further hits for the country as less money goes into the economy.
The Tories are adding to the country's economic slowdown by preventing people from entering work due to having no provision in the Universal Credit system to help people enter and maintain work, fuelling further instability as claimants just simply cannot to work under this system.
Paul Delaney,
Thorndean Avenue, Bellshill.
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