Written evidence from Voluntary Norfolk [UCW0083]
Q1a) To what extent have the mitigations introduced so far helped reduce the negative impact of the 5 week wait?
A) For those who have been able to access the Advance Payment then the impact of the wait has of course been mitigated but we hear from clients that there are still many, prior to the recent lockdown, who have difficulty in accessing the Advance Payment and therefore are still facing significant difficulties. For those who have been able to access the advance payment they have have a significant concern regarding the requirement to pay it back out of their benefits over the required period of time.
Q1b) What problems do claimants still experience during the five week wait?
A) The main issue is around peoples’ ability to budget in a way that gives them confidence they will be able to meet their families’ needs. Many new claimants do not have funds available to them to cover the delay in payment and even if an advance payment is made they still have to wait until the first “normal payment” is made before they can be certain of the income they will receive. Of course this is then reduced by the need to refund the advance payment at some point.
Q2a) What is the best way of offsetting the impact of the five week wait?
The best way of offsetting the impact would be to eradicate the need to wait five weeks in the first place. In our view the change to this period when UC was introduced was as a “welfare savings measure” and not one that helped the new system help more people back into work quicker, as IDS wanted. The then Chancellor decided to use the introduction of UC as a Welfare to Work savings exercise knowing that many people would return to work in the period and not pursue their claim. It also enables DWP to take a more relaxed approach to benefit processing as hitting a five week target should be much easier than delivering previous legacy targets of around two weeks. In reality there is evidence to show that even five weeks is not sufficient time for DWP to process all claims.
There should be no cost to DWP at all as they have to process all of the claims made anyway, unless of course sufficient evidence is not provided in time and they close these down. However every claimant who makes a claim is entitled to a decision being made on it and therefore the processing must take place anyway. It would be helpful to know how many claims DWP do not process due to sufficient evidence not being provided as the claimant moves off UC before DWP process the claim? What will change for DWP is the speed at which processing is required but this is more about changes to systems and administration rather than additional costs. Indeed there would be savings to DWP as they would not need to provide as much funding to external organisations such as LAs and CAB to help these organisations pick up the problems UC has caused. Previous legacy benefits paid fortnightly in arrears were much more effective and caused significantly less difficulties to claimants and eternal partners.
There would be no additional costs to third party organisations by taking away the five week delay. Indeed they would accrue significant savings as they have been asked to pick up the burden that DWP has caused by introducing this delay.
Q3) Are there different mitigating options for different groups?
A3) Previous legacy systems have shown that there is no requirement for different groups of people however, as ever, there may be certain individuals who require a different system for some, or all of the time , depending on their circumstances and DWP need to be able to recognize and respond to these occasions.
Q4) Are there barriers or potential unintended consequences to removing the five week wait?
A4) We do not see any barriers or unintended consequences to claimants only benefits the major one which is that they will know their financial situation more quickly than at present and, as with legacy benefits, this will help them focus on returning to the labour market.
For DWP the removal of the five week wait will require them to process claims more quickly but as mentioned earlier this is a system and administration issue not a resource issue. Indeed claimants must be entitled now to be paid earlier than five weeks, for example what if someone returns to work after three weeks and requires payment of their benefit due? Determining a due payment date is, as can be seen from the change when UC was introduced, an administrative decision. There are no issues we can see that prevent barriers to changing the five week payment delay there are only ideological issues to overcome.