The take-up of disaster prone universal credit (UC) is slowing down, in spite of being rolled out to more jobcentres across the country, statistics released by the DWP show.{jcomments on}
There were supposed to be 100,000 people claiming UC by May of this year, a massively reduced target from the one originally by Iain Duncan Smith. However, the DWP still managed to fall short and now look very likely to miss next May’s target of half a million claims in payment, given that there are currently only around 126,000 people getting UC.
Most worrying of all for the DWP, however, is the fact that instead of the take-up rate increasing, it’s actually slowing down.
Claims are currently being made at a rate of 6,000 a week. But as the graph below shows, the current level of take-up is actually lower than it was in June of this year. The DWP have argued that the slow down is due to ‘seasonal effects’ over the summer.
The truth is, however, that even by mid-September claims had not recovered to their pre-holiday level.
UC, it seems, continues to be the most unsuccessful benefit roll-out in living memory.
You can download the full set of UC statistics from this link.
