Politics

Universal Credit now seven years late

Published

5 years ago

February 10, 2020

Iain Duncan Smith: Former Cabinet member responsible for welfare farce

THE ROLLOUT of Universal Credit has been delayed again to 2024.
Over seven years after it was originally supposed to be implemented in full and over a decade after it was first piloted, the scheme has lurched from crisis to crisis in its troubled history.
Universal Credit merges six existing benefits, including housing benefit and child tax credits, into one monthly sum.
The government’s stated aim is to simplify the welfare system, both to help claimants, cut fraud, and encourage work. However, its ultimate effect has been to slash welfare payments to the most vulnerable and plunge claimants into debt as they wait for their first payment of the new benefit.
The fresh delay, to September 2024, was uncovered in an upcoming BBC documentary about the government’s contentious welfare reform. It will add an estimated £500m to the Universal Credit programme, which is already billions over budget.
The delay has arisen because fewer people than expected had signed up to the new system, according to a new BBC documentary, Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State.
In an excerpt released by the BBC, Neil Couling, the DWP’s director-general for Universal Credit said, in August last year: “We’ve had a lot of anecdotal evidence of people being scared to come to Universal Credit.
“It’s a potentially serious issue for us, in terms of completing the project by December 2023, but I’m urging people not to panic,” he said.
Mr Coulting continues in a subsequent meeting to say: “Three, six or nine months, it doesn’t matter – the headline will be: ‘Delay, disaster’.
“I would say, ‘Go safe, put the claimants first, and I’ll take the beating.'”
This week, the DWP admitted the delay was necessary because the number of people who had moved on to UC was lower than official estimates.
The BBC documentary shows the DWP acknowledging that the reason for the lower-than-expected uptake was the fear that new Universal Credit claimants would lose out.
Gross and ongoing delays in making benefit awards on the new system have plunged people into debt recouped from their benefits due to the waiting period for its first payment imposed by the UK Government.
Universal credit was phased in during 2013.
The benefit was first due for full rollout by April 2017. However, transferring claimants to the new system has been plagued by a series of technical delays. Those delays include a fiasco over IT infrastructure and the failure of the system to account for varying incomes for the self-employed and those employed on casual or zero-hour contracts.
Last week, the UK Government lost a major case on the benefit’s rollout.
In a decision handed down in the Court of Appeal by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Singh, the court ruled transitional provisions relating to the treatment of disabled persons were discriminatory. It found that a severely disabled person who moved from an area where UC had not been rolled out to an area in which it had would be treated less favourably than a person who did not move. In a second case, the court quashed provisions meaning those who migrated ‘naturally’ from Severe Disability Premium to Universal Credit less favourably than those who made the transition under the managed migration scheme.
Last year, former DWP Secretary Amber Rudd said that payment delays of Universal Credit were ‘the main issue’ leading to dependence on foodbanks.
The delay’s announcement follows the publication of a report by the Resolution Foundation
The report notes that the final – and most challenging – phase of the roll-out, involving the transfer of existing benefit and tax credit claimants onto UC, is due to start later this year.
The Foundation states that a marginal average increase of a whacking £1 a week for some claimants ‘masks sizeable groups of families that lose out by large sums, and significant geographical variation across the UK. Thanks to factors such as local rent and earnings levels, and the characteristics of local populations, some parts of the country will be left significantly worse off as the switch to UC goes ahead’.
In areas with a relatively high proportion of single parents, out-of-work single people and disabled people, all of whom fare badly under UC, claimants lose out. Also, while Universal Credit favours working families with high rents, it hits those in areas with below-average rent levels.
The Foundation adds that policymakers in Whitehall, and across the UK, need to consider the impact of Universal Credit at a local level. At exactly the time that policy debates are rightly focusing on what can be done to close economic gaps between parts of the UK, this major welfare reform will be rolled out with very different impacts on those places.
Laura Gardiner, Research Director at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Welcome recent reforms mean that Universal Credit is now set to be marginally more generous than the benefits it is replacing. But this average hides a complex mix of winners and losers, with families in some areas of the UK faring particularly badly.
“As well as making reforms at a national level – such as helping families to overcome the first payment hurdle and offering more flexibility for those with childcare – policymakers across the country need to better understand the effect Universal Credit will have in different places. That understanding should be central to policy debates that are rightly focusing on what can be done to close economic gaps between parts of the UK.”
Welfare minister Will Quince said: “Universal Credit is the biggest change to the welfare system in a generation, bringing together six overlapping benefits into one monthly payment and offering support to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
“It is right that we revisit our forecasts and plan, and re-plan accordingly – ensuring that the process is working well for people on benefits.
“Claimants will not lose money due to this forecasting change.”

Community

Pembrokeshire town 4G phone mast plans withdrawn

Published

2 days ago

December 20, 2024

Bruce Sinclair - Local Democracy Reporter

PLANS for a replacement 20-metre-high 4G phone mast tower in north Pembrokeshire, which the local town council says would have “an unacceptable adverse impact” on the national park’s beauty have been withdrawn.

In an application before Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Cellnex, through agent Telent, sought permission to replace an existing 10m high mast with a new 20m 4G tower with three Vodafone antennae and nine mast head amplifiers, and associated works, on land at Dwr-y-Felin Farm, Fford Bedd Morris, Newport.

The application for a 4G mobile base station for the mobile network operator(s) (MNOs) Vodafone Ltd in conjunction with Cornerstone. The application site is owned / operated by Cellnex UK, a radio site infrastructure provider.

A supporting statement accompanying the application said: “The proposed antenna height of 20m is essential to provide new 4G coverage and replacement 2G and 3G service provision to the surrounding area. 4G radio signals are more sensitive to physical obstructions than older technologies.

“This is because the higher the frequency band the greater the reduction in signal strength, increasing the likelihood of dropped calls and reduced data rates for internet browsing,” adding: “Generally, the higher the signal frequency the more it will be impacted by clutter. It is for this reason that there is the height of 20m is required.”

It went on to say it “should be noted that a radio base station within this location has already been considered acceptable and has become an established feature within the area and the proposed upgrade albeit different in design to support the latest equipment will not be of substantial or detrimental harm to the national park, conservation area or heritage assets”.

Newport Town Council had objected to the application, saying: “The proposed development (if approved in its current form) will have an unacceptable adverse impact on the qualities and special landscape and seascape character of the National Park and also on the special qualities of natural beauty and tranquillity.”

The application has now been withdrawn.

Charity

Flats for veterans to be built at VC Gallery, Pembroke Dock

Published

2 days ago

December 20, 2024

Bruce Sinclair - Local Democracy Reporter

A CALL to build flats for armed forces veterans on a former Pembrokeshire school yard/playing field next to veterans’ charity the VC Gallery has been approved by county planners.

In an application before Pembrokeshire County Council, veterans’ charity The VC Gallery sought permission for eight flats in two blocks of two-storey buildings, including wheelchair accessible flats, for Armed Forces veterans on land to the east of the former St Marys Catholic School site, Britannia Road, Pembroke Dock.

The former school, which closed in 2019, is currently used as the VC Gallery, itself an expansion of veterans’ charity the VC Gallery’s home in Haverfordwest, set up by Barry John MBE.

Documentation, through agent Pembroke Design Limited included a supporting statement by Barry John MBE, which it says “explains the issues that veterans face after leaving the services, the need for dedicated housing provision, the support that VC Gallery’s staff and volunteers provide and the gaps in current provision which the proposed development will help address”.

It added: “Although the development will provide and encourage independent living for its tenants, essential physical and mental support will be provided by the staff and volunteers in the VC Gallery as required, in accordance with individual veterans’ needs. Many will need a high level of support and the close proximity of the flats to the facilities and people on hand in the adjacent VC Gallery is therefore critical to the proposal’s purpose.”

Mr John’s statement said: “We want to create a unique offer to Armed Forces veterans in Pembrokeshire by offering up not just quality accommodation in a gated and safe environment but to also have a bespoke peer mentoring service.”

He added: “Working alongside our stakeholders The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust and the OVA (Office of Veterans Affairs) we have secured a grant to draw up plans and to look at how the secured land at the VC Gallery Pembroke Dock can be turned into a bespoke housing solution for Armed Forces Veterans.

“We have Service level agreements with the local authority for specifically supporting tenancy in veterans which will also extend to giving vital counselling services. Our work with the health board and provision for peer mentorship also gives us great grounding for effective help on a practical level for the veterans’ village but we will need a more designated package around the housing we provide to include both mental health and also maintenance (something we don’t have at present).”

His statement finished: “We think the need is great, we have the land, we have the skills for care and the ambition to help. It would be a project above all social housing enterprises, and we want to make a go of it.”

Politics

Call to stop councillors being employed by MPs and MSs

Published

3 days ago

December 20, 2024

Bruce Sinclair - Local Democracy Reporter

A CALL to stop senior Pembrokeshire county councillors being employed by MPs or Senedd members is to come under greater scrutiny at a special council committee.

In a Notice of Motion submitted to the December meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council, Independent Group leader Cllr Huw Murphy said: “While it is acceptable for Cabinet members to hold other employments, no serving county councillor should hold a Cabinet position within Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC) while simultaneously being employed by a sitting Member of Parliament (MP) or Member of the Senedd (MS).

“Cabinet members hold executive responsibilities, and such dual roles risk potential conflicts of interest, particularly if Cabinet decisions conflict with the policies of their employer, often a political party. This concern is heightened in a council where most members are Independents.”

Cllr Murphy’s notice of motion was heard at the December meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council where it was agreed the matter be referred to a future constitutional review committee.

In the registration of interests for the eight members of Leader Cllr Jon Harvey’s Cabinet, only Cllr Joshua Beynon, deputy leader of the Labour Group and Cabinet Member for Corporate Finance and Efficiencies, lists a politician as an employer, in his case newly-elected Mid and South Pembrokeshire MP Henry Tufnell.

Responding to the notice of motion, Cllr Beynon has previously said: “This motion, which appears to target my unique position as a Cabinet Member for Finance and part-time parliamentary employee, raises serious questions about its fairness, legality, and intent.

“At its core, this is a politically motivated motion that seeks to undermine the principles of fairness and freedom. It attempts to dictate lawful employment choices of councillors, disregarding the importance of balancing public service with individual rights. Such an approach risks creating a chilling effect, discouraging capable individuals from serving in public office in the future.”