Universal Credit childcare support “a barrier to work”, undermines policy itself

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• Read the report conclusions and recommendations
• Read the full report: Universal Credit: Childcare

A key benefit DWP has claimed for Universal Credit is that it will see an additional  200,000 people move into work, and that the UK's workforce will contribute  over  100,000  million  additional  hours every  year under the new benefit system.  But its  success  or failure in achieving these aims depends largely on working parents.

Universal Credit claimants pay for childcare up-front

Universal Credit claimants  must  pay  for  childcare  up-front  and  claim  reimbursement  from  the Department  after  the  childcare  has  been  provided.  This  can  leave households waiting weeks or even months to be paid back. Many of those households will be in precarious  financial  positions. Too  many  will  face  a  stark  choice:  turn  down  a  job offer, or get themselves into debt – to DWP, or to friends, family or other loan providers -  in order to pay for childcare. The Department says that  its  approach  to  reimbursing  childcare costs under  UC  is  intended  to  reduce rates high rates of  fraud  and  error in  the  legacy system.  But prioritising this objective has created a barrier to employment that will be insurmountable for some households. 

Budgeting advances

The Department has suggested “Budgeting Advances” as a solution for parents struggling with the costs of childcare, claiming that they are "not a loan but an advance" of Universal Credit entitlement.  The Committee says this is simply “untrue”. The  Government's  own  website  is  clear  that Budgeting  Advances  are loans: debts  that  must  be  repaid.  Claimants  who  are  already  struggling  with ongoing  costs  should  not  be  expected  or  encouraged  to  take  on  extra loans and debt in order to be able to get or keep a job. The Committee has previously expressed grave concerns over DWP's approach to reclaiming debt. The Department is responsible for designing the barriers to work in to Universal Credit childcare  support:  it must shoulder responsibility for fixing them.
 
The Committee says: 

• Direct  payments of  UC  childcare  support to childcare providers would  alleviate  the  problem  of  upfront costs, give childcare providers much-needed certainty of income, and substantially reduce the risk  of  fraud  and  error. The Department's objection that its IT systems as currently configured could not cope with direct payments and changing them “will take some time” does not counter the necessity or rightness of making those changes. 
• As things stand, some 100,000 households - including the poorest -  will receive less for their childcare costs than under the legacy system, and the value of payments has already eroded every year: the maximum amount DWP will reimburse has not increased since 2005. The Committee says Government should review the maximum amount and percentage of childcare costs that can be reimbursed under Universal Credit, modelling the effect of increasing them on parents' participation in work and introducing London weighting to account for the very high childcare costs in the capital. The Department should carry out this work and implement the best of the two options before it starts so-called "managed migration" – transferring claimants of existing benefits to UC. 
• It is unacceptable that households claiming Universal Credit - amongst them the poorest in society - are struggling with childcare costs while the Government is funding support for households earning up to £200,000 per year. The Government should divert funding from the schemes aimed at wealthier parents (Tax Free Childcare and the 30 hours free childcare) towards Universal Credit childcare.
• Every JCP has a “Flexible Support Fund”, a budget to  provide  non-repayable,  discretionary  grants  to  help  people overcome barriers  to  work. This should  be  invaluable  to  claimants  struggling  with  the upfront costs of childcare. But the Committee heard that the Fund was “the biggest secret in the Jobcentre” – little known and under-used. The Department's limited data shows the FSF has been underspent in every year since 2012-13, and the proportion spent on childcare is  minute. DWP should start to monitor the use and impact of the FSF.

Chair's comments

Rt Hon Frank Field MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

"If the Government had set out to design a system to make it harder for parents to get into work, it could hardly have done better than this one. It's not just driving parents into despair and debt and creating problems for childcare providers—it's also actively working to prevent the Government achieving its own aim of getting more people into work. And it is simply irresponsible of Government to suggest that the way around this policy's inherent problems is for struggling, striving parents to take on more debt - still more so to claim, untruthfully, that it is not a debt at all. It clearly is.
 
"This is about more than employment figures. Good quality childcare enhances a child's life chances—and that enhances our society and our economy. If the Government doesn't sort this out, Universal Credit childcare support will work against all that good, as well as against the objectives of Universal Credit itself."

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