Government to start ‘slowly’ moving 1.7 million Brits on benefits to Universal Credit ‘within weeks’

THE Government is set to being “slowly” moving 1.7 million Brits to Universal Credit “in weeks,” a top official has said.

But charities and the Government’s welfare watchdog expressed concern about the “managed migration” away from old-style benefits.

The transfer had been put on hold due to Covid but is understood to be restarting this spring, according to the Mirror.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will start with a small number of Tax Credit claimants, up to a cap of 10,000 households.

They’ll then remove that cap and move onto disability and other benefit claimants with aim of having everyone on the new system by the end of 2024.

But the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) warned the move could “create a significant risk” for the most needy Brits, many of whom have “complex lives”.

Chair Dr Stephen Brien said there was a need for “independent oversight and scrutiny” and announced more experts would be brought in to help lift the 10,000-household cap.

Downing Street insists Universal Credit is more generous than old-style benefits after they were forced to repeatedly reform it amid intense public anger and poor Brits turning to food banks to survive.

The six-week wait has been cut to five while the amount given to debt repayments was cut.

Anela Anwar, head of the anti-poverty charity Z2K, said lifting the 10,000 cap could still leave people worse-off and should be improved by Parliament.

She said: “It ensures DWP avoids a repeat of the shambolic early stages of Universal Credit, when many people were left without anything to live on for weeks or sometimes even months on end.

“That resulted in MPs getting hundreds of complaints from desperate and angry constituents.”

Dr Brien – one of the architects behind Universal Credit – said he’d make “evidence-based” decisions.

He told ministers on the latest change: “I can provide assurance that we do not wish to unduly delay the process.

“We will not be undertaking a large-scale public consultation on this occasion but intend to seek the advice of a small number of experts, including those with significant experience or expertise of agile processes and their governance.”

He added: “For the public to have confidence in this process and to minimise risk further consideration needs to be given to establishing appropriate independent oversight and scrutiny of the programme as it moves forward.”

The DWP said in November it was “determined” to swap people onto Universal Credit by December 2024.

The Department’s Permanent Secretary Peter Schofield told MPs: “We got the funding in the spending review to finish this on time.”

Neil Couling, the director general behind Universal Credit, said the move would be a “slow, slow, slow experience” as bureaucrats being processing in “small volumes”.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Universal Credit is a modern dynamic benefit which supports people in and out of work.

“We have always been clear about our ambition to move people over from the legacy systems, which are complex, inefficient and based on aging, inflexible IT.

“The Department will continue its regular engagement with the committee and our ambition remains to see the rollout of Universal Credit delivered safely and on time by 2024.”