One of the many things that scares me about Universal Credit, the new all-encompassing benefit being launched this year to replace Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance, Housing Benefit and Tax Credits is the plan for it to be 'digital by default'.
In theory, there are obvious advantages for both claimant and DWP here. From the claimant's perspective, there's no losing the form in the post either on the way out or back in; your claim is received the moment you click the 'finish' button, not several days later at the mercy of the Royal Mail and after languishing in a central DWP post handling centre somewhere. Perhaps you can even track its progress online, or will get helpful email updates? "I am delighted to advise that your Universal Credit is on its way today. I hope that we're able to make your day a special one. I'm unable to confirm the exact time we'll be delivering your benefit but, rest assured, it's in safe hands. Many thanks for choosing the DWP."
Have a Nice Day!
Except it won't be like that. For a start, many claimants still don't have access to a computer with reliable Internet access. Councils shutting libraries as a consequence of the squeeze on their funding hasn't helped. But even if all potential claimants of Universal Credit could access a secure and private computer to make their claim, that wouldn't solve the problem.
Doing anything official 'online' involves several tiers of security and, as I have found today, unexpected delays at various stages. When not sitting here putting the world to rights, I'm a self employed gardener and craftsperson, and it's Online Tax Return time. In fact, I wouldn't be blogging now if that was all going to plan, but it isn't...
To deal with HMRC online, I need my National Insurance Number, a ten digit personal tax reference number, a separate twelve digit User ID and, in order to activate my online service, a twelve character PIN. Having acquired all of these components I have duly activated my account, only to find I can do nothing with it for 'up to 72 hours', which is a pain as I had set this afternoon aside specifically as quiet time to do my Tax Return.
Furthermore, despite being well-educated and relatively proficient with a mouse and keyboard, when I first registered as self-employed, somehow I must have entered the wrong year for the commencement of my business, and thus ended up with an assessment form and demand for underpaid Class 2 NI from a year earlier than I should have done, an error which proved impossible to resolve online or by phone and needed the use of old-fashioned ink and paper to sort out. I'm certain I wouldn't have let the error slip through had I been working with a paper form that could easily be read back through and checked, but I didn't see a 'print-out' or 'check' option when I had completed the online form nor was there any way to look back at it to see whether it was my indeed my error or HMRC's.
Naturally, I'll be hitting 'print screen' regularly when I can finally get into the system to do that Tax Return, but if the IT system and helpline provision for Universal Credit is anything like this, there will literally be people left starving. At the very least, the Government should be looking to draft in a lot of extra DWP personnel to staff Jobcentres and 'pop-up' offices and assist claimants through their new claims, and deal with emergency payments if (or when) the system crashes.
Instead, the plan appears to be to hope there's enough grub for them at the foodbanks.
