Universal Credit To Go Nationwide From Next Week

Universal credit, the government’s welfare programme, will be accelerated next week as the Tories ramp up their attack on Labour’s record.

Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, is to announce plans to extend the scheme nationwide at the rate of 15 new job centres a week from next Monday.

The scheme has been tested at 96 job centres in London and the northwest, but from Monday all new single benefits claimants will start joining the programme, which merges six benefits into one. Couples and families will be added at a later stage.

Officials said that the scheme for single people would be phased in over the year, with more than 250 job centres offering the system by the end of April and a further 120 by July.

Mr Duncan Smith will this weekend confirm the extension, more than doubling the current scale of six new centres a week. “The accelerated rollout means that it will be in a third of the country’s job centres by spring. Universal credit will provide the country with an economic benefit of £7 billion each year,” a source close to the minister said.

He will also initiate an onslaught on Labour’s record, arguing that Ed Miliband has been “sitting on the fence” on welfare. The Tories believe that the government’s drive to cut down the social security bill has played well with its voters and with those tempted to defect to Ukip.

“Ukip voters don’t like the policy on overseas aid or Europe or immigration, but they do back the welfare changes,” one Tory source said.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has said that if Labour won the election she would suspend universal credit for three months to investigate it.

The scheme, which has run into delays and had to be “reset” at huge cost because of IT problems, has already been the subject of “access” talks between Labour and Whitehall officials.

Although the party supports the principle of merging benefits, it has said that it would scrap the scheme if it became too expensive and unwieldy.

Mr Duncan Smith hopes that his decision will put Labour on the spot and make the system more difficult to unravel. He will claim that the trials have been so successful the programme can be introduced more quickly than expected.

However, a National Audit Office (NAO) report has said the programme would still not be completed until 2019 or 2020.

About 54,000 claims have been made so far but nearly eight million people will be eligible when the scheme is opened to new and existing claimants. There have been small trial runs for couples and families with children but only 26 centres will process these by March, according to Citizens Advice.The charity yesterday backed the widening of the scheme but was concerned that it would not be matched by support for claimants.

“The accelerated rollout of universal credit must be matched by the expansion of support for new claimants,” said Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.

“Nine out of ten of our clients need assistance to deal with things like monthly payments and budgeting. As more people move on to universal credit it is vital that they are able to access the help and support they need to understand the new system,” she said.

Ms Reeves criticised the uptake so far. “Only 26,940 people are claiming universal credit according to the latest government figures — that’s less than 3 per cent of the 1 million people Iain Duncan Smith promised would be by April 2014,” she said.

“Labour wants universal credit to work and we’ll call in the NAO to do an immediate review of this delayed project, which is years behind schedule. And unlike the government, we won’t pour millions of taxpayers’ money down the drain.”