General Chat

Below is the statement from the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts and the link to the The National Audit Office (NAO) Report.

I subscribe to the Committee of Public Accounts reports which I receive weekly and any issue I find interesting I follow quite closely.

I have been following the various arguments for and against the Universal Credit and although I can see the thinking behind the idea of combing various benefits into one benefit, I do wonder if the government has properly thought this one through and that we may end up with a system which could cost more than what it will save, to date at least £34 million has already been wasted by a government which keeps telling us they have no money - what do you think?

NOTE_ THIS IS NOT A THREAD ABOUT MARGARET HODGE NOR IS IT A THREAD ABOUT BENEFIT SCROUNGERS - IT IS A THREAD ABOUT THE PROS & CONS OF THE PROPOSED UNIVERSAL CREDIT

Chair's statement on Universal Credit - 05 September 2013:-

A statement from The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts:

The Department for Work and Pensions has made such a mess of setting up Universal Credit that the Major Projects Authority had to step in to rescue the programme.

DWP seems to have embarked on this crucial project, expected to cost the taxpayer some £2.4 billion, with little idea as to how it was actually going to work. Confusion and poor management at the highest levels have already resulted in delays and at least £34 million wasted on developing IT. If the Department doesn’t get its act together, we could be on course for yet another catastrophic government IT failure.

This damning indictment from the NAO gives me no confidence that we will see the £38 billion of predicted benefits between 2010-11 and 2022-23. Vulnerable benefit claimants need a secure system they can rely on.

The National Audit Office (NAO) Report:-

http://www.nao.org.uk/report/universal-credit-early-progress/

To answer your question OFITG...Nope is won't and it certainly isnt. :-D

Its a one size fits all policy

It is doomed to fail from the start

Hayley Empress of Drama & DazedConfused - If they cannot get it ti work properly on a trial with a few hundred, how do they expect it to work with several million :-S

We all have 'good' ideas, but we tend to think them through before lashing out hard earned money.
Unfortunately, this, and previous governments aren't spending their own money and seem to think their/their consultants' ideas are foolproof, so embark on them without proper thought, and with absolutely no idea of how the recipients live.
A prime example of this government's views of the rest of us is Gove stating that people 'end up using food banks because they waste money on mobile phones'.
Also, this government is under the illusion that everyone (even the unemployed) either has a computer or is computer literate.

maggiewinchester I agree and I see several other pit falls, not least that it is proposed to pay claimants monthly - people struggle to budget on a weekly or fortnightly basis so how will they cope with monthly. I also believe that with benefits being combined rents will be paid to the claimant instead of to the landlord - crazy :-S

I agree OFitG - expecting people on the breadline to hand over rent is despicable.
I work, but due to pay freezes etc, now struggle. I get paid monthly and the first thing I do is go down to the rent office and pay a month's rent in person.
I DID attempt to have a direct debit, but it took the Council 3 months to get it sorted. I wanted it taken out at the beginning of the month - they took it out as and when - which ensured I never knew how much money I had, or didn't have, in the bank. THEN they wanted ANOTHER month's rent in advance!!

AFAIK from April 2014 Housing Benefit will be paid directly through people's bank accounts rather than directly to Housing Associations and landlords. It does not take a lot of imagination to work out the chaos which will ensue. That Local Government of all political stripes and all HA were against suggests problems. OTOH it is likely to be a good earner for all the usual suspects.

Universal Credit will work from the point of view of the Coalition Government. The objective of the UC is for the DWP to be like any other government department where George Osbourne's stricture of a fixed budget grid in cash terms has to be applied. It is already obvious what a terrific success this has been with the NHS, Education, Legal Aid, Police and so on and so forth.

Thus the hacks at DWP equipped with way out of date DELL Pcs running an otherwise dead operating system programmed in ancient languages such as Delphi will be told by a mish mash of contradictory logic whether to grant sustenance or not. Many of the hacks are already very restive and consideration is being given to outsourcing the job to the usual suspects.

So long as the budget constraints are met the DWP does not care a fig about the outcomes for applicants ( "Customers" ) especially with the Daily Wail, Daily Exma and the polls egging it on.

Sadly UC is unlikely to be a success from the point of view of those who depend on it for part or all of their incomes. Possibly some will find zero hour contracts as extras with the upcoming dystopian movies already in the Beeb/ITV pipeline. "Peaky Blinders" is just a warm up.

Otherwise move along, nothing to see, only starving and homeless people.

:-S

postem: the DWP I.T. overspend will be deducted from the overall sum available for actual benefits which is why the Treasury is not screaming and yelling.

RolloTheRed - Are you saying it does not matter if it works as long as they have done what they said they would do and to hell with the consequences as it only affects the plebs ;-)

I suppose the homes left by those unable to pay their rent will lower the Social housing list.
I should imagine those evicted through being unable to pay their rent will suffer some form of 'penalty' for their eviction, like not being entitled to social housing for a year or so, thus freeing up their accommodation and conveniently apparently lowering the list of other people desperate for homes.

This freed up accommodation (probably mostly bedsits) will then be inhabited by pensioners whether they like it or not - after all, despite paying into a state pension all their lives, are considered recipients of Benefits, therefore at the mercy of any government idea. This means no more one bedroomed flats need to be built to cover the bedroom tax fiasco, and pensioners can freely be shoved out of their 2 & 3 bedroomed houses.

Thus enabling the government to declare that they've sorted the shortage of social housing

maggiewinchester - that is so cynical :-D surely our honest, righteous, we are all in it together leaders, would never contemplate such a thing ;-)

yeah, maggiewinchester understands the thinking.

The UC will be judged on whether it brings non-pension benefit spending inside the grid not whether it delivers a better and fairer system to "Customers".

In areas with high value housing esp London the target is to shift a lot of social housing into the private sector and decant those displaced somewhere else e.g. Margate.

Brave New World

Well, OFITG, they certainly have the lack of compassion.
All they need is a consultant with half a brain cell :-| :-| :-|

...and of course, those evicted - well it was their own fault, they were feckless etc . Nothing to do with them having squit all to live on.