Ongoing News

The number of people on Universal Credit as at March 2019 was 1,837,191.

Of these claimants 608,765 were in paid work and 1,228,428 were not working.

Alternative payment arrangements- The number of claimants receiving split payments (between partners) was only 9 in February 2019! The number receiving more frequent than monthly payments was also low at 4,188.

In a tweet on 4/4/2019, Universal Credit Director of Operations John-Paul Marks has confirmed all live service claims have now ceased. This is presumably because either they have been transferred to the full(digital service) or closed.

If you are not able to work because of sickness and you have paid sufficient national insurance contributions, then it is still possible to claim Employment and Support Allowance. This type of ESA(new style) is generally non means tested( very similar to the ESA contributory that it replaces).

safeguards in place and support available to assist homeless people in making a claim for Universal Credit include:

From 1 April 2019 Citizens Advice (England and Wales) and Citizens Advice Scotland will deliver a new “Help to
Claim” service to support vulnerable claimants through the process of making a claim to Universal Credit.

How do you challenge a claim that's closed?

The government say-

'In the event of a closed claim, claimants can still see their previous journal entries and payment statements in a read-only format.

The British Psychological Society has joined eight other leading mental health organisations in calling for the removal of benefit sanctions for people with mental health

The government has said in a written response-

The government made £billions of cuts to Housing Benefit (which has been passed into Universal Credit housing costs), over the years after 2010.

In our Social Welfare Training February newsletter, we explained how mixed aged couples would not be allowed to claim Pension Credit/ the more generous form of Housing Benefit from 15/5/2019, losing often £7,000 per year.

UCFS Post Canterbury BC, Nutwood House, Chaucer Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1ZZ

Shared by one of our Universal Credit course participants-

A letter from Motability confirms that they can use their discretion to allow clients to keep their Motability cars for longer than 6

Universal Credit as at 10/1/2019 was 1.6million. Of these people 560 thousand (34per cent) were in employment.

There are around 170,000 new claims per month!

Important- We have been advising of this future change and we finally have a date. From 15/5/2019, mixed-age couples will be excluded from entitlement to Pension Credit.

Important- From 16 January 2019, a new law prevents new claims for claimants entitled to the SDP at the time of claiming or at some time in the month before.  Legacy benefits would be claimed instead.