York professor leads calls for major changes to Universal Credit

Professor Peter Dwyer, a professor of social policy who has been involved in extensive research into the controversial new benefit, was a key signatory on a letter to the Daily Telegraph which claimed a six week delay in payments was tipping people into debt and rent arrears.

The letter, which was signed by eight other York academics, came just a week after The Press revealed how one of York’s first UC claimants faced eviction from his home in Holgate after waiting 15 weeks for his first payment of the benefit.

Peter Clark, who lodged his claim in July after being made redundant, received the full backdated payment within hours of The Press raising his plight with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which apologised for the delay.

A Department spokeswoman said then that the vast majority of claimants were paid in full and on time, and were ‘comfortable managing their money.’ She said UC was at the heart of a commitment to help people improve their lives and raise their incomes and it was working, with people moving into work faster and staying in work longer than under the old system,

The academics’ letter said UC was being widely criticised for failing to deliver on its promises to make work pay, simplify the system and reduce costs.

“A growing body of research shows that this is due not to teething problems but to failings in design,” it said. ”To take one example, UC is not paid until after six weeks. Consequently, people are being tipped into debt and rent arrears.

“Reducing this time to four weeks is unlikely to avoid the risk of missed monthly rent payments, with major impacts on landlords as well as claimants.”

The letter said discretionary advance payment loans did not solve the problem, because they added unnecessary complexity.

The academics backed calls by leading charities for the Chancellor to announce in the forthcoming Budget that UC would be paid to claimants within two weeks to help ameliorate problems.