Hundreds more put on Universal Credit in Coventry

HUNDREDS more people in Coventry were put on universal credit in January.

New figures from the Department for Work and Pensions have revealed that 7,270 people in Coventry were on the benefits system at the start of the year.

It means an extra 631 individuals across the city were put on to universalcreditsince December, when the figure stood at 6,639 people.

The increase followed further delays to the full roll out of the system.

MPs were due to vote on whether to move three million existing benefit claimants on to universal credit at the start of January, but the vote was pushed back.

Instead there will be a trial of just 10,000 people this year - beginning with benefit claimants in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

However, people making a fresh claim for benefits or those whose circumstances change will still be moved on to the scheme.

The system was first introduced in 2013 and was intended to replace six ‘legacy’ benefits, including unemployment benefit, taxcreditsand housing benefit.

It was supposed to be implemented across the UK by 2017, but management failures, IT blunders and design faults mean it has already fallen at least six years behind schedule.

The system is now not expected to be fully operational until December 2023.

There have been a wealth of problems caused by the new single benefit and recently, people in Coventry have been speaking out about their own struggles on the new system.

As well as leaving claimants with nothing to live on during the transition period - which takes longer than a month many are then finding they are then worse off than they were while on legacy benefits.

Meanwhile, flaws in the system put poorer claimants especially at heightened risk of hunger, debt and rent arrears, ill-health and homelessness.

One man told the Telegraph that him and his wife were left with just £1 a day to live on after a chain of unexpected and unpreventable setbacks.

Coventry Foodbank also revealed that the number of people needing emergency food packages due to late payments and reduced benefits massively increased following the Universal Credit roll out in Coventry.

And it’s not just in Coventry that the new system has been criticised.

The government have faced several legal challenges in the High Court over the policy including one that argues universal credit has a “disproportionately adverse effect” on disabled claimants. Earlier this year four working single mothers won their claim in the High Court that they were struggling financially because of the way their UC payments were calculated.

The increase in the number of people onuniversalcreditin Coventry means that one in every 50 people in our city are now on the scheme.

That’s a lower rate than the national average, however.

Across Britain, more than 1.6 million people were on the scheme in January - up from 1.5 million in December, and working out as one in every 39 people.