News7 mins ago
The Tories...the Listening Party ?
Theresa May urged to halt Universal Credit roll-out
http://
"Twelve Conservative MPs have written to work and pensions secretary David Gauke to call for the same thing"
I wonder if she will listen ?
http://
"Twelve Conservative MPs have written to work and pensions secretary David Gauke to call for the same thing"
I wonder if she will listen ?
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Universal Credit replaces 6 easy to understand benefits with one one very complicated benefit. It was supposed to be simpler, cheaper and quicker. But it is in fact complicated, difficult to claim, more expensive (a lot more) and incredibly slow to impliment. So slow in fact that claiments are weeks if not months behind with their rental payments by the time any money starts to trickle through.
I hope, TTT, that you can appreciate that there is a difference between criticising the application of a policy and criticising the principles behind it. The two main ideas behind Universal Credit are that (a) the benefits system as it stood before was too complicated (although this is debatable), and (b) no-one who is working should be worse off than if they were instead on benefits (and vice versa).
I say that the first is debatable, because Universal Credit is really just a rehash of the old Supplementary Benefit, and *that* was abandoned in 1988 because, among other things, it was no longer suited to the real needs of the people it was meant to support. Or, in other words, the growth in the complexity of the benefits system is as much as anything else a reflection of how complex life is. So trying to simplify things again risks making them *too* simple, and so no longer as much of a help as they could be(*)
But it's hard to argue the second point, and I think everyone would agree that being in work should be better-paid than not being.
So it's not a WSS thing to criticise Universal Credit, because the principles are sound and almost universally accepted. But the way it's been implemented has not been. The situation hasn't been helped by, for example, trying to rush the development of UC through; or because it incorporates benefits that were previously within the remit of Local Councils (Housing Benefit) or HMRC (Tax Credits); at the same time that the DWP was trying to develop policy for universal Credit, meanwhile, it was also working on a new benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, that Labour introduced to replace the old Disability Living Allowance, and the double transition within just a few years has been an administrative nightmare.
All this, while the DWP has been subject to significant staffing cuts, and you can while imagine that the implementation has been incredibly difficult, if not disastrous to some families, and the amount of challenges to benefit decisions for UC has been huge, far more I believe than would be expected. Oh, and IDS was a prick, according to those who directly worked with him, apparently incapable of listening to official advice or respecting legal opinion. And he wasn't the only Minister at the DWP to be so incapable of understanding how the system is meant to work.
But rant over. I am not sure if Universal Credit should be scrapped, but certainly it deserves a good deal of attention and effort given to making sure that it is ready, more so than it's received so far from ministers. The roll-out at this point is almost certainly premature and will just lead to misery for many of those it is meant to help.
(*) Although as a counter to this idea that too simple is bad, you can also go down the Universal Basic Income route, and ensure that literally everyone gets at least so much money a year regardless of circumstances.
I say that the first is debatable, because Universal Credit is really just a rehash of the old Supplementary Benefit, and *that* was abandoned in 1988 because, among other things, it was no longer suited to the real needs of the people it was meant to support. Or, in other words, the growth in the complexity of the benefits system is as much as anything else a reflection of how complex life is. So trying to simplify things again risks making them *too* simple, and so no longer as much of a help as they could be(*)
But it's hard to argue the second point, and I think everyone would agree that being in work should be better-paid than not being.
So it's not a WSS thing to criticise Universal Credit, because the principles are sound and almost universally accepted. But the way it's been implemented has not been. The situation hasn't been helped by, for example, trying to rush the development of UC through; or because it incorporates benefits that were previously within the remit of Local Councils (Housing Benefit) or HMRC (Tax Credits); at the same time that the DWP was trying to develop policy for universal Credit, meanwhile, it was also working on a new benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, that Labour introduced to replace the old Disability Living Allowance, and the double transition within just a few years has been an administrative nightmare.
All this, while the DWP has been subject to significant staffing cuts, and you can while imagine that the implementation has been incredibly difficult, if not disastrous to some families, and the amount of challenges to benefit decisions for UC has been huge, far more I believe than would be expected. Oh, and IDS was a prick, according to those who directly worked with him, apparently incapable of listening to official advice or respecting legal opinion. And he wasn't the only Minister at the DWP to be so incapable of understanding how the system is meant to work.
But rant over. I am not sure if Universal Credit should be scrapped, but certainly it deserves a good deal of attention and effort given to making sure that it is ready, more so than it's received so far from ministers. The roll-out at this point is almost certainly premature and will just lead to misery for many of those it is meant to help.
(*) Although as a counter to this idea that too simple is bad, you can also go down the Universal Basic Income route, and ensure that literally everyone gets at least so much money a year regardless of circumstances.
I'd have thought UC would be popular with you Mikey.
Instead of you getting the minimum state pension (because you worked hard all your life)
And your lazy neighbours getting twice as much because they didn't.
You'll all get the same, somewhere in the middle.
(No doubt, I've over simplified it. Don't bother writing in with case studies, etc, to prove it doesn't work exactly like that)
Instead of you getting the minimum state pension (because you worked hard all your life)
And your lazy neighbours getting twice as much because they didn't.
You'll all get the same, somewhere in the middle.
(No doubt, I've over simplified it. Don't bother writing in with case studies, etc, to prove it doesn't work exactly like that)
You'll forgive me for pressing the issue, spicerack, but what's the point of making an argument that (a) you suspect to be probably wrong, and (b) you have no intention of letting anyone correct you with something so dirty as "facts"?
You had a similar comment on another thread, something about how the left are "never short of a statistic to back up their argument", as if, again, being grounded in reality and actual statistical data in order to support an argument is some sort of dirty left commie trick. (Yes, I appreciate that you added "(however fatuous)" to the quote above, but still, I wonder if you assume that all statistics are necessarily fatuous until proven to have come from a right-winger...)
You had a similar comment on another thread, something about how the left are "never short of a statistic to back up their argument", as if, again, being grounded in reality and actual statistical data in order to support an argument is some sort of dirty left commie trick. (Yes, I appreciate that you added "(however fatuous)" to the quote above, but still, I wonder if you assume that all statistics are necessarily fatuous until proven to have come from a right-winger...)
//actual ... data in order to support an argument is...//
...rather good in my opinion.
...as is another intellectual exercise: assess the effects of a given policy, as in "How likely is it that this policy will achieve its intended benefits? (Class project: "What effects do you think minimum wage legislation will have on poverty?")
...rather good in my opinion.
...as is another intellectual exercise: assess the effects of a given policy, as in "How likely is it that this policy will achieve its intended benefits? (Class project: "What effects do you think minimum wage legislation will have on poverty?")
None of this is directly relevant to the legislative details discussed in the OP.
It's a rant and a cry of despair.
If you want a National Health Service you need most[i people to be healthy in order to care the the sick.
If you want a Welfare State you need [i]most] people to be self-sufficient in order to care for the poor.
It's a rant and a cry of despair.
If you want a National Health Service you need most[i people to be healthy in order to care the the sick.
If you want a Welfare State you need [i]most] people to be self-sufficient in order to care for the poor.
Universal Credit was intended as a simplification which is certainly not what is happening for many, right/left hands not knowing what the other is doing.
Housing Benefit as per usual causing the biggest problems and forcing people into potential homelessness which will end up costing more in the long run.
Change is fine if implemented correctly and every time they do it another huge amount is spent as it flounders.
Housing Benefit as per usual causing the biggest problems and forcing people into potential homelessness which will end up costing more in the long run.
Change is fine if implemented correctly and every time they do it another huge amount is spent as it flounders.
