REFORM OF UNIVERSAL CREDIT TOO FAR

SUMMARY - Its almost uncountable the numbers of DWP Secr since CONservative are in power and everyone of them is as bad if not worse as the one before.

Update Nov., 2018 - Amber Rudd replaced Ester McVey as DWP Secr - no improvement. Universal Credit still in a mess and people losing their benefits and live; by either starvation or suicide. 

David Gauke was replaced by Ester McVey who seems to be even worse. She won a Bedroom Tax court case against a couple whose wife is seriously disabled. The court expenses are paid by taxpayers

David Gauke worked for a finance company which helps tax avoiding. Nice guy. May knows how to pick them.

Update 6 Oct., 2017 -- Damien Green was replaced  by David Gauke who decided to roll out the Universal Credit despite objection from a number of MPs.

The objection is mainly that payments are withheld for six weeks. How on earth do those fatcats think already down trodden people manage. 

Ah, said wise May, there is a phone line to ask for earlier payment  but it cost 55p per minute. Under pressure from Labour May promised to drop the 55p per minute fee but accordingly, so far it did not happened.

Again, wise May, how will people pay for it and most of the elderly or very old people would not know about it.

All this before we even find out how much we lost and it bound to be a loss for us and a massive gain for May and her money-thirsty
Zombies.

The Winter Fuel Payment had been cut by £100 even after an announcement that 40,000 people died of hyperthermia, last winter, and the energy prices increased by 10 or 15 per cent.  It scarce you to think what will be the outcome of this winter. But they could find the money to print an eight-page leaflet for all sorts of advice. The leaflet was printed with NHS and the cost must have come out of NHS not DWP or heaven forbid from May's handbag.

The Welfare Secretary is now Damian  Green. It is doubtful there will be improvement because he is praising Ian Duncan Smith for his excellent work.

The Resolution Foundation said: "Universal Credit has been taken too far from its original purpose and veered off track because of the cost cutting."

It was announced at a time when the Government announced a further cut.

The new Welfare secretary Stephen Crabb said: "The payment was transforming welfare and getting people into work faster." The problem is that people in work are so low paid; they are starving or cant afford the rent and get homeless. Do Tories have brains apart for their own advantage.

The statement is such a humbug when 3 million unemployed less all the various methods of bringing the figure down with such as Zero-hour-contracts and so forth.

Last month, March, the unemployment has even risen by 61,000. A month where unemployment usually falls because of building sites and outside jobs starting again.

In view of those facts how can Mr Crabb make a statement like that? Surely he knows the full situation.

The original plan was for Universal Credit to replace six benefits - Job seeking Allowances and Employment and Support Allowances with a single payment.

After a long delay and costing an enormous amount of money it is gradually introduced across the UK and is now available to new job seeker in every Job Centre.

It is hoped that the reform be finalised by 2021.

Although the Resolution Foundation had supported the original plan but said now "which have been driven by the government's desire to secure further saving in the Welfare budget....have taken it too far from its original purpose.

"Unless it is reversed Universal Credit risks being reduced to little more than a very complicated vehicle for cutting the benefits bill."

Surely, the fact was obvious to the public from the start and the one and only purpose for the reform.

Welfare ex-secretary Ian Duncan Smith belied his own resignation statement. He went, literally, hopping mad when Chancellor George Osborne announced the £12billion Welfare cut but when Mr Osborne reversed some of the Welfare cut in March budget Mr Smith resigned stating to pressure of "salami slice" welfare.

The government said more than 450,000 people have made the claim for Universal Credit and more than 9,500 new claims every week. This is not a success story but purely due to pressure from the government.

Mr Crabb said: "Universal Credit is transforming Welfare and is central to our vision for our society where people of all background can earn a decent wage and provide for their families, where claimants moving into work faster and earning more then under the old system."

Has it ever occurred to Mr Crabb why people are on unemployment benefit because there are no jobs to be had?

Again, surely it is in their vision but it will bring families down to greater hardship.

The only way to create employment is to stop austerity which would bring back demands for goods to buy and increase manufacturing. At the moment manufacturers are rapidly reducing staff or going bankrupt all together

UK had 6 years of it and it brought nothing but highest debts for 8 years and highest deficit for 67 years despite of austerity and cut backs. Not a success story and if the Government wants to ride the country into inflation it is on the right road.

Labour Party has more sense and promised to stop austerity

TOTAL CHAOS AT UK DEP OF WORK AND PENSIONS AND STILL IS- Updated 4 Oct., 2019

Update 4 Oct., 2019 - one cant up with the many changes DWP had - at the moment is Theresa Coffey since 9 Sept., 2019 after Amber Rudd resigned

Update 22 Nov., 2017 --
In June, 2017 David Gauke replaced Damian Green. he is determined to roll out Universal Credit which delays payment for 6 weeks and all just before Christmas. It is feared there will mass starvation and homelessness but May will not stop it.

Update 30 March 2017
Mr Crabb was replaced by Damian Green but it is not an improvement. All the cuts introduced by George Osborne coming now into effect on 1 April, 2017 Where Disabled people losing £30 per week receiving £70 only while MPs had an increase of £1,000 per year.


UPDATED:   19 August, 2015
Ian Duncan Smith was caught out to sent out leaflets with false claims.  leaflet stated that claimants  who lost some or all of their benefits were glad because it would encourage them to put more effort into their studies or  work. Mr Smith and the DWP got away, so far, with an incredible amount of spending taxpayers' money, cruel sanctions and people committing suicide because of it. How much longer before he and his department is cut down?  That is where the Chancelor should cut down.


UPDATE:  3 March, 2015  --  After a long  run of disasters in reforming the Department of Work and Pensions it had not been revealed that Ian Duncan Smith was allowed to waste £800million.  This is the biggest scandal yet after Prime Minister David Cameron and his Tory-led government set back and let it happen. People were pushed to the biggest hardship since Victorian times.  This government and Ian Duncan Smith have also cause more than 1,000 deaths. Either by starvation or suicide.  Yet Ian Duncan Smith was never move from his post and is still, Cameron's blue-eyed boy.  To let him waste £800million and preach austerity to the public is beyond any acceptance or understanding 

The original idea was to put all benefits and tax credit into one payment and the reform was called Universal Credit. On the paper it sounded a good idea but the practice was and is a different story.

The Universal Credit came into force on 1 April 2013; maybe that was already a mistake. 1 April is supposed Fools day.  Now let us analyse it seriously from the taxpayers’ point of view because it is the very hard up taxpayer who will foot the bill. The amounts wasted by now borders on criminal irresponsibility.

To start with a massive IT system supposed to be install by the 1 April to cope with the change over. Today, the end of October it is still not working and the National Audit Office written £34million off already.

Taxpayers desperately needed money was washed down the drain. To begin with Ian Duncan Smith head of the Depart of Work and Pensions knowing very well of the new reform coming into force but also being aware of the IT system not even being built employed extra staff costing the taxpayers £1.3million. Already those two points do not show any savings as promised and Mr Smith had no answer already for that mess. He still does not admit the system is a complete shamble.

In spite of it all, Mr Smith paid himself and his staff a bonus of £44million which is incredible and the most unbelievable point is that the Prime Minister David Cameron just stands by and does not intervene. Every time there was an outcry from the public and newspapers were printing details of the chaos existing in the DWP nothing more was done but another reassurance of that Universal Credit will be delivered on time and within the budget. This whitewash did not convince the taxpayers especially when it was repeated times and again while the chaos continued.

Mr Smith still insists that the reform will be working and ready on time in 2017. However, worried ministers started to question the reform and put pressure on for a clear answer.  A leaked document added further incredibility and complains. It stated that by 2015 only 0.2 percent would have moved onto the new system which meant 25,000 people.  This definitely proved the incompetent of the DWP head Ian Duncan Smith and the Prime Minister David Cameron to establish a measly 25,000 cases were processed between April 2013 and April 2015 at a cost of £34million written off, £1.3million for extra staff and £44million for bonuses. That result floors an elephant.

While this wastage of million goes on the taxpayers not only has to foot the bill but also their benefits are being cut constantly because of the famous bring down the deficit and austerity measures being necessary.

Surely there never had been a bigger irresponsible waste of money in any government while David Cameron strutting about giving empty promises, smiling trying to re-assure the public all is well, throwing more money about and could not care less.  The same situation is another so called reform at the National Health Service but this will be another report. Stay with us.

Till this government came into power Britain had a perfectly run DWP. Admittedly there were some flaws where people scrounging on benefits which they did not deserve and that was the excuse of the great reform. However, it would have been far less expensive if Mr Smith ordered staff to go some records thoroughly trying to picked them out and let the rest of the well running system go on.

The drama is coming up to the peak with many ministers putting on pressure and it summons up into two choices.  One is to revert back to the original system and write off £119million for work carried out during the last three year.  The second option is to carry on and throwing good money after bad which still ends up in chaos and total inefficient. Not having saved a penny for the taxpayers as trumpeted around but costing a lot more which most probably will be the case at the end, if carried on.

Latest news is that Mr Smith is moving the reform trials into London. In spite of not working he extents it even further. That man and Cameron leaves any one speechless about their audacity.

FLAGSHIP UNIVERSAL CREDIT SHOULD BE SCUTTLED updated 18 August, 2017

Updated 18 August, 2017 --   Four years later and it is still not working but cost a fortune more then it was promised to save. PM May added a further £12bn Welfare cuts on 1 April, 2017. The impact on already starving, homeless people will be devastating and has not come fully into effect. There will be mass deaths and suicides. 

The great reform heralded for months by the Coalition in which the claimants will be receiving all the claims in just one payment was the Government great flagship and put into force on 1 April 2013. It was to be a great saving for the Department of Works and Pension, head Ian Duncan Smith. He also announced, at the same time, that the new system would show people that it is better to work than claim benefit. This fact emphasises that the claim will be cut so low people could not live on it. Mr Smith and the Government do not seem to realise or accept the fact that with almost FIVE million unemployed there is no work available. Officially 2.5 million unemployed.

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As of today after almost six months the Universal Credit is in chaos.  An IT system which should have been in use to work out exactly what each claimant suppose to receive is unusable according to the National Audit Office and instead of saving the whole exercise cost the taxpayers million. They still insist that it will be fully functional by 2017 and will save £38million by 2014. These facts were all worked out and all without IT.  Marvellous.

In the first six months so far £1.3 million had been spent on 112 extra staff. It should have been explained by Mr Smith why these extra staff had to be employed since the previous staffs were able to cope.

£34millions was swallowed up in bungles and wasted money on the unusable IT system.

To crown it all Ian Duncan Smith paid his staff and most probably himself the most a bonus for this shabby work of no less than £44million. Does the Government ever step in to stop spending taxpayers‘ money?  Obviously not.

While all this wastages of taxpayers’ money goes on the Chancellor George Osborne is announcing of another Budget, which will be at the end of September 2013, with significant cuts. Cuts which will not be in that direction but for the general public.

The Department of Works and Pension spent £44million on staff bonuses but it in total chaos.  £1.3million on extra staff because they can’t get the IT system going to handle the Universal Credit reform probable organised.

IAN DUNCAN SMITH

Another flagship of David Cameron is ATOS who got a £1billion contract and tells people with incurable illnesses they should be able well enough to work in three months time. Even the medical world can’t find a cure for Parkinson, MS and CF which are all deteriorating illnesses but ATOS can forecast an improvement within three months good enough for them to be able to work again. How must these people feel, suffering and knowing the final outcome of their illnesses being told such rubbish and their Disability benefit cut?

The newly established NHS Healthcare 111 which suppose to take calls from the public and decide whether they are a hospital case or could be advised to take some medicine; can’t handle most of the calls because most of them are not medical trained and the system is braking down. This is again a waste of taxpayers’ money for setting it up and trying to keep it going.

The Border Agency, Serco, G4S and so many more the list could go on are nothing but a waste of money and the Coalition does nothing about it. All these scandals had been known for far too long and newspapers pointed them out a number of times.

The MPs themselves had a pay rise of £7,500 per year at the time of the great AUSTERITY and were not satisfied about that but demand now to receive a £20,000 for their expenses but without having to justify them.  In Saturday’s newspaper in the Daily Mirror a big list was printed showing all the employed wives, husband, daughters and step-daughter with £15,000 for part time and up to £35,000 for full time with recently salary increases.  A shame the public can’t check out how much work they really do. Talking about spitting the hard-up public not into their eyes but into their faces.

Chancellor George Osborne and the Coalition seemed to apply AUSTERITY only to one side of the British people. It would be high time he also put on the brakes on his friends and all these newly established companies plus handing out contracts which waste nothing but taxpayers' money.  It would do miracles to his deficit. Furthermore, when is David Cameron bringing the Tax avoiders to justice as he keep promising times and again? His own father-in-law, a very rich man with a big estate in the Highland of Scotland has an off-shore account which proves how sincere David Cameron’s promises are.  

UK NEW UNIVERSAL CREDIT IN TROUBLE

The UK government seem to be over-ambitious to change all the systems. Yet, it never seems to be thought through properly or organised before hand. At the end it cost the taxpayers more money than it should be saving as the government always promised.

In spite of promises that the NHS would be safe in their hands no sooner the Conservatives were elected they started to sack 4,000 nurses and closed A & E departments. By now the Doctors and nurses are under huge pressure and the waiting lists are far too long. Next months NHS will be transferred from the Department of Health to a Trust which smells of privatisation. If it is it will not be for the better.

Last year the government announced to change the welfare into the biggest shake-up for generation. The government's flagship the Universal Credit supposes to bring all the benefits into one payment. So far when the government changed something it was always for the advantage of the government never for the people.

Now it was revealed that the government’s pride and joy the Universal credit is already in crisis. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne is trying for the MPs to admit that the scheme is in crisis and to try their hardest to sort it out now before millions of family’s tax credits are at risk.

Furthermore, a report revealed Work and Pension s Secretary Ian Duncan Smith had to put back three of four pilot schemes which supposed to have started next month to July. 

As mentioned earlier in this report all this mess is not surprising and the public had it too many times with the coalition meddling and trying to change systems which had been there for decays and worked.  Previously with the Conservative Party only in power Margaret Thatcher turned the whole country up side down with privatisation of gas, electricity, railway, shipbuilding and cling down most of the coal mines. The result was that shareholders (guess who) made a packet and all these industries deliver a poor service to the consumers.  It also resulted to five million unemployed. Since they haven’t learned their lesson PM Cameron plans to privatise the Royal Mail, Fire-brigade and selling he RAF Search and Rescue Service to an American Company.