Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Rejected
Universal Credit demonstrates positive short-term labour market impact for claimants, DWP evaluations confirm
Conclusion
The Department has some evidence to indicate that UC is having a positive impact on the labour market based on its evaluations of the short-term impact. Its first four evaluations covered single claimants without children – the most recent of these, based on data from 2018, found new UC claimants were two percentage points more likely to have been in employment at any point in the six months after starting their claim than new Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants. In February 2024, the Department completed a fifth 7 C&AG’s Report, paras 9, 1.6, 1.7 8 Qq 1, 33; C&AG’s Report, para 1.17 9 Committee of Public Accounts, Universal Credit, Sixty-Fourth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 1183, 26 October 2018 10 C&AG’s Report, Figure 1 11 Qq 1–2, 4; C&AG’s Report, para 1.14 and Figure 6 12 Qq 1, 5 13 Qq 1–3; C&AG’s Report, para 1.29, Figure 7 Progress in implementing Universal Credit 11 evaluation, also based on data from 2018, which found single parents were five percentage points more likely to have been in work within six months of making a new UC claim compared with being on legacy benefits.14
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the implied recommendation to track job types and duration for UC claimants, stating it was not a program objective and would not provide the desired insights for evaluating Universal Credit's impact.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
2.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 2.2 Tracking the types of employment Universal Credit claimants take up, and the duration of the claim, were not objectives of the Universal Credit Programme. 2.3 The department remains committed to understanding the labour market effects of Universal Credit and regularly monitors the labour market outcomes of Universal Credit customers using internal management information, as well as through a range of monthly and quarterly official statistics: the Office for National Statistics (ONS) claimant count, the department’s own Universal Credit official statistics, His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs-ONS payroll employment statistics and ONS statistics on employment, unemployment, inactivity, and workforce jobs. 2.4 The department is continuously developing Universal Credit statistics and has a wide-ranging research and evaluation programme on a range of departmental activity including five published impact evaluations, all showing the positive impact Universal Credit has had on employment. 2.5 The department does not agree that tracking a subset of claimants and publishing information on their employment, including a longitudinal study, would create the insight for which the Committee is hoping. This is because it could not show what would have happened in the absence of Universal Credit, and therefore would not help to prove the business case benefits. It would monitor outcomes but not isolate the impact of Universal Credit. The department, therefore, does not agree that this recommendation would be of significant value in the context of the Universal Credit business case impacts.