Recommendation 30

In written evidence, organisations who work with benefit claimants raised concerns about how the transitional protection arrangements were working, specifically about how the Department calculated amounts due, how accurate its calculations were, and the risk that people were receiving incorrect payments which they could not check themselves due to a lack of transparency. Citizens Advice, for example, said that it had helped 1,500 people with issues around transitional protection in 2023, but that uncertainty around how the transitional element was calculated had impacted the advice it had been able to 57 Qq 81–82 58 Q 83 59 PUC0002 60 PUC0005 61 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.22–2.23 Progress in implementing Universal Credit 17 provide.62 The Housing Systems told us that it had found the Department’s approach to calculating the transitional element to be inconsistent and that it had seen examples of amounts being calculated incorrectly.63