As a result of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 the
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has started to introduce a
new benefit called Universal Credit, which is intended to roll the
6 current schemes of income related benefits and tax credits into
one single benefit scheme for working age claimants. The intention
is that the payment method of Universal Credit will normally be one
single monthly payment directly to your bank account. Any help for
housing costs such as rent, mortgage interest or service charges,
would be included as an element of the single monthly payment.
Whenever universal credit is introduced throughout
the UK, the intention is that it will be assessed using the
following 7 elements:
• Standard allowance (for single adult or couple)
• Child element for each child
• Disabled child amount, for each disabled child
(lower or higher rate)
• Childcare element
• Amount for an ill or disabled adult (lower or
higher, depending on limited capability for work or limited
capability for work-related activity)
• Carer element
• Housing element.
• A further intention is that Universal Credit will
replace:
• Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Income support
• Support for housing costs in the above 3
benefits
• Child tax credit, and
• Housing benefit (to be replaced by the housing
costs element of Universal Credit)
If you receive one of the above benefits the DWP's
aim is that you will be moved onto Universal Credit sometime
between 2014 and 2017.
Originally, in 2012 the government had announced a
plan to launch Universal Credit across the whole of the UK in
October 2013, but later had to abandon that idea. At the time of
writing this guide, the DWP had withdrawn most of its specific
target dates for introduction of the full Universal Credit scheme,
except for the final target of UK-wide introduction by 2017. It is
therefore not possible to say exactly when most people will
experience the introduction of Universal Credit.
A test version of Universal Credit was introduced for
newly unemployed single jobseekers only in certain areas of the UK
called Universal Credit "pathfinder areas." It was first introduced
in Ashtonunder-Lyne and Wigan from 29 April 2013 and then in
Warrington and Oldham from 29 July 2013. From October 2013 onwards
the government started a programme to roll out the test version of
Universal Credit gradually to newly unemployed single jobseekers in
6 further pathfinder areas, which are Hammersmith, Rugby,
Inverness, Harrogate, Bath and Shotton. The roll out programme is
intended to be complete for those 6 areas by the spring of 2014.
Note that the only pathfinder area so far identified in Scotland is
Inverness.
The DWP further intends that, at some point after
spring 2014 Universal Credit will have expanded to include people
who are newly unemployed living elsewhere in the UK and people who
are already claiming the benefits that are to be replaced.
The government's longer term plan is that the gradual
roll-out of Universal Credit will continue to 2017, by which time
the aim is that Universal Credit will have replaced all income
related benefits and tax credits for all working age claimants.
As things stand at present, Universal Credit has only
been introduced for certain newly unemployed single job seekers in
pathfinder areas, which in Scotland means only in Inverness, where
it started on 25 November 2013. Even for people in the pathfinder
areas, most of the elements of Universal Credit, such as the
disability and carer amounts, and the child related elements, have
not yet been introduced. Only the standard allowance for a single
adult and the housing costs element are used in the current test
version of universal credit in the pathfinder areas.
For everyone else in the UK, Universal Credit has not
been introduced, and the 5 income related benefits it is intended
to replace remain in existence. This is expected to remain so for
most people in the UK for some considerable time to come.
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