The Guardian view on universal credit: flawed calculations

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/11/the-guardian-view-on-universal-credit-flawed-calculations

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The four single working mothers who took the government to court over the way that universal credit payments are calculated should be applauded. That two high court judges have ruled in their favour is further evidence of flawed judgment at the Department for Work and Pensions. Ministers must now decide whether to appeal, or make a new set of adjustments to the stuttering benefits system, as they prepare for a scaled-back roll-out in July.

The problem at the heart of these women’s case was the automated assessment of monthly income. Because of accidents of the calendar, such as paydays falling on weekends, in some months they were paid twice, and in others not at all. The effect was wildly fluctuating payments and lost allowances, leading in one case to a woman giving up work. While the details are technical, the lesson is straightforward. Their example is just the latest in a long series of illustrations of how universal credit’s design fails to match the lives and needs of real people.

Secretary of state Amber Rudd, who took up the post after Esther McVey’s resignation in November, is the fifth work and pensions secretary since 2016, when the scheme’s architect, Iain Duncan Smith, resigned in a row with the Treasury over cuts. She has already gone further than her predecessors in admitting to difficulties. She knows that migrating existing benefits claimants over to the new system is going to be very painful, which is why she announced on Friday that she has decided to hold off until the arrangements have been tested on a sample group of 10,000 people. She also said the freeze on working-age benefits should be lifted next year. The two-child limit on the tax credit element of the benefit will now only apply to children born after the cap was announced, while efforts will be made to ensure that payments are made to a family’s main carer, usually a woman, following concerns that abusive partners could use the family budget as a means of coercive control. A mechanism will be looked for to pay rent to landlords directly, as under the previous housing benefit regime.

What was once touted as a flagship programme is now six years behind schedule, with just 10% of claimants on the new benefit and £2bn spent. In accepting the need for changes, Ms Rudd has listened not only to campaigners weary of pointing out the weaknesses. Opposition from her own party’s MPs led to previous timing adjustments. The “rape clause”, whereby an exception to the two-child rule is made if a woman can prove a third child was conceived through rape, remains rightly criticised as the awful consequence of an unfair rule. Intensifying the hardship faced by single working mothers, as highlighted by this week’s ruling, is wrong – and looks it.

Last year’s scathing National Audit Office report laid waste the case the government has made for universal credit, yet also warned that, so far down the road, it would be too complex and too expensive to stop. Outstanding problems include the inflexibility of the computerised system, and wishful thinking with regard to the level and kind of support that is needed by people facing an upheaval in their circumstances which they didn’t ask for, and may not be able to manage. The very least that this ill-conceived and faltering project needed, after Mr Duncan Smith left, was someone else to own it. Instead, there have been repeated changes of cast. Ms Rudd, two months into her new job, has at least acknowledged problems. But the changes she has so far announced, though welcome, are utterly inadequate.