Universal Credit: getting to first payment

The Department should:
a) work in partnership with organisations that support Universal Credit claimants to:
• develop a more evidence-based understanding of why some people delay their claim for Universal Credit;

• develop communications and other proposals to encourage people to claim earlier when it is in their interest to do so;

• develop a better data-based understanding of the numbers of vulnerable claimants – and any direct or indirect diversity impact of its payment performance – and use this to support the needs of people
who continue to struggle with making a claim for Universal Credit; and

• deliver significant improvements in the clarity of its claimant communications, ensuring these are clear, appropriately tailored, and contain all necessary information.

b) develop detailed plans to reduce fraud and error in Universal Credit;

c) prioritise improvements to the Universal Credit digital system to help front-line staff identify and support claimants who need more help;

d) assess the delivery and funding model for its Help to Claim service based on results from its planned evaluation and explore ways to use data to assess the impact of the service on outcomes including payment timeliness; and

e) ensure that it continues to monitor variances in the whole-life cost of its major programmes against their business case and updates Parliament on major changes when they are identified.