Recommendation 22

The Department expects to provide more support when it begins moving more vulnerable legacy benefit claimants to UC from April 2024. In September 2023, it began a phase of testing involving 2,000 households on Housing Benefit, Income Support, 36 Q 20 37 Department for Work & Pensions, Move to Universal Credit complaint statistics: April 2023 to December 2023, 11 March 2024 38 Q 27 39 PUC0004 40 PUC0002 41 Q 23 42 C&AG’s Report, para 2.17 43 C&AG’s Report, para 2.18 44 PUC0002 45 PUC0005 Progress in implementing Universal Credit 15 income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, or a combination of benefits.46 The Department told us that, in light of the testing, it had worked hard to develop an enhanced support package for more vulnerable legacy benefit claimants.47 We asked the Department to clarify what support would be put in place for someone going through the migration process. The Department said that it would now be writing to claimants 11 weeks after sending a migration notice to remind them to claim, before attempting three outbound calls and writing to let them know it would be arranging a home visit from its visiting officers if it did not get a response from these calls.48 Additionally, the Department told us that, before stopping people’s legacy benefits, it would review all termination decisions to ensure it had exhausted all possible avenues of support.49 It also said that it could always extend a household’s migration notice beyond the usual three months if it had not been able to provide support.50