An ‘Official sensitive’ document obtained via the Freedom of Information Act has revealed more of the DWP’s timetable for the forced move of legacy benefits claimants onto universal credit (UC). It appears that most claimants will not begin to be moved until the winter of 2023.
The document ‘Move to UC Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy’ divides the move into four phases leading up to the full national roll out of forced migration.
Phase One - Discovery
April-June 2022
Small numbers only
Phase Two – Scaling
June 22 to January 23
Minimum 1,000 claimants
Phase Three – Scaling
Spring 2023
Minimum 5,000 claimants
Phase Four – Rollout to national scale
Winter 2023
100,000+
Except for an unlucky group of a minimum of 6,000 people, it seems that most legacy benefits claimants are unlikely to be affected by the transfer before the winter of 2023.
However, after that the process will have to go at an extraordinary pace if all 2.6 million affected legacy benefits claimants are to be transferred by the end of 2024.
Each phase is intended to gather more information about such things as how well vulnerable claimants are identified, which groups fail to respond to migration notices, which groups come off benefits altogether and what happens to them.
Claimants will be monitored from the point at which they are asked to move to the time when they are on UC, have been paid and their conditionality regime has been established.
The DWP say that they will be carrying out in depth interviews and large scale surveys as well as ‘tracking claimant interactions using Smartphone Apps’ in order to capture the full range of experiences of claimants undergoing the transfer.
The DWP clearly expect a number of claimants not to make the move because they say that:
‘Research will also be undertaken with a sample of claimants who choose not to make a UC claim to understand what has driven this choice.’
The fact that these may be some of the most vulnerable claimants and that they may not want, or be able, to have a dialogue with the DWP does not seem to be a particular concern. And the fact that only ‘a sample’ will be contacted is a real cause for concern.
The benefits affected by forced UC migration are:
- Child Tax Credit
- Housing Benefit
- Income Support
- income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Working Tax Credit
So far, selected claimants have received a migration notice in:
- Bolton
- Falmouth
- Harrow
- Medway
- Truro
The DWP have published an information page for claimants who have received a migration notice.
You can download a copy of ‘Move to UC Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy’
