We keep hearing Universal Credit’s working. It isn’t. But we can tell you how to fix it
THIS week, a letter arrived on the desk of Esther McVey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, from the ‘APLE Collective’ – with an offer of help.
“We’d like to share our ideas and experiences on how Universal Credit could be improved, so it can help people to meet their aspirations and to leave poverty,” the letter said.
The APLE Collective – Addressing Poverty through Lived Experience – is not a think tank. It’s made up of real poverty experts – Universal Credit claimants from places like Stocktonon-Tees and Salford.
People who want to know why, in five years since the controversial benefit was first rolled out, no one has bothered listening to them.
“The Government needs to start listening to people actually on Universal Credit,” Diane Pottage, 54, of Stockton, one of the letter authors told me. “We keep hearing it’s working. Well, I’m sorry, it isn’t. But if you listen to us, we can tell you how to fix it.”
Her solutions are: “Stop the rollout to any more places, and take time to listen to the people who are on it. Go back to fortnightly payments. Stop the five-week wait for help.”
This week – after two ex-Prime Ministers attacked the benefit, and Esther McVey finally admitted “some people will be worse off” – leaked documents suggested the Government is desperately seeking solutions to stop UC becoming the new Poll Tax.
Yet, the voices of claimants are still being routinely ignored. Meanwhile, the Government fought Labour tooth and nail in Parliament this week to avoid releasing its own impact assessments of how people have been affected. Ministers tampered around the edges – delaying the rollout of UC for those on existing benefits. But, of course, people in low-paid work are always becoming ‘new claimants’ as one precarious job ends and they need help while they find another one.
Meanwhile, at least 10,000 people with existing claims will still be ‘migrated’ to UC during 2019. That may seem a small number if you don’t have children to feed. “My social safety net is gone because of Universal Credit,” another of the letter’s authors, Letitia Rose, 50 from West Yorkshire, said. “It’s not just the way the benefit works, it’s all the pathetic administrative errors.”
The next day the Government admitted wrongly underpaying 180,000 disabled people to the tune of £1bn. Patricia, 60, told me she was actually working at the Jobcentre when the new benefit came in – before needing to claim UC herself when the contract ended. “It’s not better for people, it makes things worse,” she says. “I don’t think politicians would survive a week on Universal Credit, let alone a full year.” Campaigners have been inspired by events in Scotland, where claimants are being brought into the design of benefits. In April, the Scottish Social Security bill enshrined in law ideas that “social security is a human right” and that “respect
for the dignity of individuals” must be at the heart of Scottish social security.
“This is not just about people saying how bad things are – it’s recognising they have the expertise needed to address poverty,” says Ruth Patrick, a lecturer in social policy and social work at the University of York, who works with benefit claimant group Dole Animators. “People with experience of poverty are not just case studies to be wheeled out. They should have a seat at the policy-making table.”
This week, the poverty experts held a string of events nationwide to mark the International Day for the Eradication of World Poverty. Diane helped run a stall at Stockton Market, urging people to share their experiences. Letitia was involved with similar events in Salford. Patricia spoke movingly at the House of Lords. And UC claimants took over @ wiganpier80, our Wigan Pier Project twitter account.
Five years after UC started, Diane’s own story is bitterly familiar – a six-week wait for help, then a wrong payment. “I’ve been to a food bank twice before and I’m not very far from needing one again,” she says. “The system is broken. My mum and dad were both working class but they weren’t going to a food bank.”
The APLE Collective has yet to hear back from McVey, but the DWP say it has received the APLE Collective’s letter and will respond “in due course”.
It says that with Universal Credit people are getting into work faster and staying in work longer. A spokeswoman added that “through our ‘test and learn’ approach we continue to listen to feedback from stakeholders and claimants and make improvements to the system”.
Yesterday, I dug out the DWP’s press release from the first rollout in April 2013. “Universal Credit is nothing less than the start of a fundamental cultural shift of the welfare system,” it proclaimed.
“This will revolutionise the way people experience the welfare state.”
A revolution that has cost hopes, dreams, potential, and even lives.