Why change Universal Credit?

Even if it were possible to mitigate the bedroom tax, benefit cap and two child limit through universal credit in Scotland, why is that a good idea? After all the Scottish Government already have a way to mitigate the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, and they have a plan to mitigate the two child limit.

The main reason is it is what’s best for claimants. Imagine if your universal credit application automatically ensures your award isn’t reduced by any of the bedroom tax, benefit cap or two child limit. From day one, everyone in Scotland would get 100% of the money they were entitled to every month.

The alternative is requiring people to not only apply for universal credit, but also to apply to their council for a discretionary housing payment and to social security Scotland for the new two child limit mitigation payment.

Take up

We know that when payments aren’t automatic, some people end up not getting what they are entitled to.

As far as I can tell it looks like the bedroom tax mitigation is actually really well taken up, that’s great news. I don’t know if it is 100% as it would be under universal credit, but as far as I can tell it is close.

The benefit cap mitigation is a different story unfortunately, it appears that less than 60% of the budget the Scottish Government allocates to benefit cap mitigation gets spent. This means a significant proportion of the people affected by the cap are missing out. There is major room for improvement.

The new two child mitigation payment hasn’t been invented yet of course so obviously there isn’t a take up rate yet. But we are told it will be similar in many ways to the Scottish child payment. Now let me say I am a big fan of the Scottish child payment, but unfortunately a significant number of people are missing out on it even though they are entitled to it. Latest stats show the take up rate is 89%. On the face of it, that is good, but one in ten children aren’t getting the support they are entitled to and £millions are going unclaimed each year.

So as we can see, a system that delivers 100% take up by design will be a real improvement on the current system.

Boring old admin

I don’t expect anyone to care much about this, but delivering through universal credit is administratively much more efficient than creating.multiple different payments. That ought to cost taxpayers less to deliver and be better value for money.

It also removes the risk of over and under payments. For example benefit payments are either not backdated at all or have a limit on the amount they can be backdated. So it is pretty common for people to miss out on what they are entitled to. Imagine giving birth to a third child, maybe there are complications, maybe you have health issues, you’re already looking after two other kids, maybe they have significant needs that place demands on your time and energy. You can imagine how someone in this situation might not immediately get around to applying for their two child mitigation payments. Better to just get it through their existing uc award surely?

This stuff is fairly dull, but it makes a difference to people’s lives.

Future proofing mitigations 

There is still hope that the uk government may move on any or all of the two child limit, bedroom tax or the two child limit. If they do the Scottish Government will need to adapt to that and change what it mitigates and how. The easiest way for this to be handled would be if claimants in Scotland were already having these cuts mitigated. The only change would be behind the scenes in terms of how much of their award is being paid for by the two different governments.

Equally if a future conservative government comes back and reimposed the cuts, again there would be no detrimental impact to claimants.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How can it be done

In the past there has been some debate about the Scottish Government’s ability to mitigate the two child limit, so can what I’m suggesting even be done? Can the bedroom tax, benefit cap and two child limit all be abolished for universal credit claimants in Scotland? This boils down to three questions, can the Scottish Government afford it, do they have the legal powers to make it happen, and could the DWP change Universal Credit this way for claimants in Scotland? Let’s take those one at a time. Funding This is the easy one. The Scottish Government already give councils enough money to mitigate the bedroom tax and the benefit cap in full, all they would have to do is move the money from discretionary housing payments to DWP. They have also committed to mitigating the two child limit in full starting in 2026. So the money to make the additional payments through the universal credit system is already there. Of course there are other costs, the Scottish Government would presumably have to...
Read more

Problems with the Scottish Government’s 2 child limit consultation

On Friday 21st February the Scottish Government published its consultation on plans to mitigate the 2 child limit in universal credit. The two child limit was introduced in 2017, over seven years ago. Since then there have been calls on the UK Government to scrap it and the Scottish Government to mitigate it. Both have declined but then rather abruptly and out of the blue in December 2024 the Scottish Government announced that it would finally mitigate the two child limit. Not only that but it is now very urgent that they do so as quickly as possible. A cynic might wonder why a benefit cut that’s been in place for over seven years suddenly demands urgent attention, and they might look to the political advantage over Labour this seems to have achieved, and also the looming Scottish Parliamentary elections which are just over a year away. But whatever the motivation, the announcement is welcome. The two child limit directly causes poverty and mitigating or abolishing it will improve live...
Read more

UC Scottish Mitigations in a nutshell

Hi thank you for finding my blog. I am calling on the Scottish Government to bundle up all the good work it is doing or plannning to do to mitigate cuts to Universal Credit into one package of changes to Universal Credit itself for “claimants” in Scotland. At the time of writing the Scottish Government is about to start a load of work to mitigate the two child limit. This will involve laying regulations, spending £millions designing and implementing a new benefit payment, and administering it (via the Social Security Scotland agency) with all that entails, processing thousands of applications and making thousands of payments every month. It’s a big job. My message is STOP! There’s a better way. Work with the UK Government to fix it at source through Universal Credit. And while you’re at it fix the bedroom tax and the benefit cap the same way too, all in one go. Hopefully already you can see why fixing all three uk welfare cuts at source may be better for Scottish claimants, but in this...
Read more