Guidance

Universal Credit local authority bulletin UC3/2018

Updated 30 November 2018

Who should read this

All Working Age local authority staff

Action

This circular is for information only

Queries

Information in this bulletin, contact:

[email protected]

Distribution of this circular, contact:

[email protected]

Introduction

Welcome to the third Universal Credit Local Authority (UC LA) Bulletin of 2018. The aim of the UC Bulletin is to provide LA colleagues with updates on developments with Universal Credit and Universal Support.

These bulletins will be issued as and when and are designed to mirror the style of Housing Benefit circulars and bulletins that have been a regular communication tool from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

We hope you’ll find these bulletins useful and we would welcome any feedback you have.

Please see the ‘Queries’ section above for the respective email address to submit your feedback.

Regards,

The Universal Credit Local Authority Engagement Team

Universal Credit Announcements

1 October 2018 Announcement

The Secretary of State made an announcement at the Conservative Party Conference on 1 October that from April 2019 Citizens Advice (England and Wales) and Citizens Advice Scotland will take on the responsibility for delivering a strengthened Universal Support service.

Neil Couling, Director General of the Universal Credit Programme wrote to all LA Chief Executives on 1 October, highlighting the announcement.

Read the press release: Citizens Advice to provide support to Universal Credit claimants

For the vast majority of areas, this new service will not begin until April 2019 and the focus until that time will be on mobilisation. However, in a limited number of areas, some piloting is taking place this financial year.

Citizens Advice are currently working with their network of local offices to brief them about this new service. A briefing pack has been provided to all local Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice will be continuing to engage and update their network on a regular basis throughout the mobilisation period.

If you have any questions about the current Universal Support offer up to March 2019, please continue to raise these with DWP.

For the new service, the primary contact for local authorities should continue to be your local Citizens Advice. However, if you need to escalate an issue please contact [email protected]

29 October 2018 Budget Announcements

On 29 October 2018, the Chancellor announced a package of measures worth £4.5 billion to support the safe and secure roll out of Universal Credit.

The Universal Credit Work Allowance will be increased by £1,000 from April 2019. This means that 2.4m households will keep an extra £630 of income each year.

Jobseekers’ Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support will roll on for the first fortnight of a Universal Credit claim, where otherwise they would have stopped. This will be effective from July 2020, and will benefit around 1.1 million claimants.

The government is extending the 12-month grace period (the period before the Minimum Income Floor applies) to support all gainfully self-employed people. This will be introduced from July 2019 and implemented fully from September 2020.

Claimants can repay overpayments and debt more slowly from October 2019 (from 40% of the standard allowance to 30%), and from October 2021 people can have up to 16 months to repay advances.

An extension in the surplus earnings cap of £1500 for another year from 2019 to 2020.

In addition, the Budget provides funding for the announcements made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in April and June 2018 to support the roll out of Universal Credit.

Read the 2018 budget

Universal credit in the Budget and draft Universal Credit (Managed Migration) Regulations 2018

On 5 November, the Secretary of State made an oral statement on the changes announced to universal credit in the Budget and on the draft Universal Credit (Managed Migration) Regulations 2018, which were laid on 5 November.

Universal Support Local Authority Funding

Universal Support LA Grant Funding 2018-19

The Universal Support take-up for Quarter 1 2018/19 showed some improvement over 2017/18 with Assisted Digital Support (ADS) at 85% and Personal Budgeting Support (PBS) at 45% of the estimated take up. Quarter 2 take-up was disappointing showing a decline to 80% (ADS) and 37% PBS. Overall, Universal Support percentage take-up fell from 60% in Quarter 1 to 53% in Quarter 2. The Quarter 1 2018/19 payment to LAs for take-up above the 50% guaranteed portion already paid was made in October while Quarter 2 payments will be made in early December.

Although take-up so far in 2018/19 is better than the 30% in 2017/18, overall this is still well below estimates.

New Burdens Allocations

We have recently conducted a cost information gathering exercise with 47 Local Authorities making up a third of those who have been live with Universal Credit Full Service since February 2018. The data is being analysed and will inform the Local Universal Credit New Burdens allocations for 2019/20.

Corporate Appointees

We are working on improving the Corporate Appointee process however, as an interim measure we have implemented a process that allows us to successfully deal with claimants on a case by case basis. The improvements are as follows:

• inclusion of National Insurance numbers on the payment schedule by the end of 2018
• an improved telephony claim process where we now ask that Corporate Appointees make all claims for their customer(s) using the DWP UC Freephone number 0800 328 5644 – this will enable the claim to be set up as a telephony claim and agree alternative contact methods with the Corporate Appointee – this will remove the need for Corporate Appointees to set up multiple email addresses
• new ways of working between the National Visiting team and UC Operations which is only used where a claimant has either a corporate appointee in place or where the claimant has special circumstances such as being in a secure unit and unable to attend the jobcentre
• where the claim has not been made via the telephony route, local DWP staff will identify these cases – if a Corporate Appointee has a specific customer issue, they should contact their local Jobcentre Service Improvement lead (SIL)

Integrated Telephony

Most people claiming Universal Credit (UC) will be able to navigate the internet, to make and maintain their UC account, however we recognise that some will need help. If someone is struggling to find information, or deal with a complex matter we know they may ask for a representative to contact DWP on their behalf.

The Universal Credit Full Service model is based on Case Management. Case Management means building a relationship and trust with claimants and understanding their individual circumstances to provide them with appropriate support.

Supporting this is a telephony strategy which enables claimants who need to use the telephone to contact a Case Manager best placed to support their query.

To talk to a UC Case Manager best placed to support the trusted partners query, there are 4 pieces of unique identifying criteria which will enable the Department to route the call appropriately. These are the:

• telephone number the claimant has registered with Universal Credit
• their post code
• 1st line of their address
• their date of birth

We know that as a claimant representative, you may need to contact us on their behalf. Explicit consent must be given by the claimant first – usually via the journal, the telephone or in person.

Read more information on Universal Credit consent and disclosure of information

Understanding Universal Credit – Website and Video

There are several videos available where you can view tailored playlists for specific areas of UC such as a service walkthrough, and if you click the notification bell it will send you a notification to your mobile when a new video is published.

For information on Universal Credit

The Understanding Universal Credit website was updated on 28 September to help customers understand what Universal Credit means for them. There is a video in section 2 that provides details on how to make a: claim

Guide to Universal Credit – supporting the homeless and rough sleepers

On 27 November the Minister launched 2 homelessness guides One for external partners to support Homeless Customers and a leaflet that can be downloaded and given out to homeless customers to support them with their initial claim to Universal Credit.

The guides have been developed with a range of stakeholders in the homelessness and advice sectors – to make sure they provide the best possible advice. We are also sharing these guides with jobcentres and a wide range of external partners.

Can you help us to promote the guide further?

You can use these guides to share this information through your networks and external partners. We have produced a simple graphic (not DWP branded) which is attached.

Please send any feedback through [email protected] or [email protected]

Trusted Partner and the Landlord Portal

As at 12 November there are 538 landlords on the Landlord Portal which includes 9 in Northern Ireland. The list of landlords with access to the portal is updated regularly in the House of Commons Members’ Library.

Local Authority Quarterly Engagement Workshops

From October 2018 to January 2019 we are holding quarterly engagement workshops across England, Wales and Scotland with local authorities that are live or are just about to go live with the full service.

These workshops will provide updates on the latest developments within Universal Credit and Universal Support, Managed Migration and the Data Hub as well as gaining vital insight, feedback and challenge from local authorities which is fed back into the Universal Credit Programme.

Welsh Language – Fully bilingual system

Work has progressed very well over the last few months to develop a fully bilingual system and to ensure the same level of functionality is available to claimants who wish to be dealt with in Welsh. This work has now successfully concluded and as a result the bilingual system will be made available to claimants in existing Universal Credit full service areas across Wales from Wednesday 28 November.

This will ensure the Welsh language version is in place to support the Jobcentres with the largest numbers of Welsh speakers who roll out with Universal Credit full service on the 5 December (Anglesey and Ceredigion) and 12 December (Carmarthenshire and Gwynedd).

UC Full Service Social Rented Sector Annual Rent Increase – October 2018

In UC full service claimants are responsible for reporting their rent changes using their online account. We have no way of identifying claimants affected by an October change and as we expect the numbers affected to be small we will not be issuing a prompt to remind them to report this. All changes reported will need to be verified and a tolerance will not be applied. Those landlords with October rent changes will experience increased numbers of verification requests during this period.

On 28 September 2018, we wrote directly to the National Housing Federation, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Community Housing Cymru and the DWP LA Welfare Steering Group about the annual exercise and GOV.UK has been updated.

Managed Migration

2019 is very much going to be a year of consolidation. We are going to start testing in 2019 on a very small scale (no more 10,000) and will refine our processes to ensure they are working well before we take on larger volumes from 2020 with an expected completion in 2023.

As part of these Regulations, we are spending over £3 billion on Transitional Protections for 1.1 million families, to ensure that no one loses out at the point they move onto Universal Credit.

We are have also committed to additional protection for 500,000 claimants receiving Severe Disability Premium. These regulations will prevent claimants from moving over before the managed migration process, and will provide financial protection for those who have already moved over.

Universal Credit Director General Neil Couling hosted an event in London on 17th October 2018 to engage a large number of diverse stakeholders and partners in the next phase of Universal Credit, seeking their input on the design of the Migration processes, and to start to draw out some of the key challenges for their organisations.

During the event delegates had the opportunity to share their views and to raise questions to a Q&A panel including Neil Couling and stakeholder representatives. A number of sessions then followed to talk about key areas of activity which stakeholders were asked to express an interest in being involved with and will now form the basis of four work streams:

• service design
• delivery model
• communicating and orientation
• supporting vulnerable claimants

On 29 November we held an Induction Webinar for all stakeholders who attended the 17 October event and a small number of others to help provide further details and context to help set the scene for the workshops. All of these stakeholders have been invited to be involved in an initial set of workshops on Service Design. Three separate sessions are planned to accommodate all interested parties. The first workshop is scheduled for 6th December and the remaining 2 events will be held in January 2019.

Our engagement approach at the current time is with the above large group of 80+ diverse stakeholders. Once we have completed this set of workshops, we may then bring in other interested parties as we move forward.

Updated Universal Credit Full Service Support Pack

The UC LA full service support pack Version 19 was issued in September 2018. This incorporated service improvements, June budget announcements, policy/process changes and user feedback.

At the recent LA Engagement events, a large number of local authorities said that they found this pack really useful and used it to train and support their staff.

Version 20 is due to be issued in January 2019.

Thank you for your continued cooperation and feedback.

If you have any enquiries about the information contained within this update please contact DWP UC LA Liaison Team:

[email protected]

DWP LA Welfare Steering Group

The DWP LA Welfare Steering Group is responsible for considering and providing a strategic expert view from an LA perspective into all Housing Benefit (HB), Universal Credit, Universal Support and other DWP welfare related matters, to support their on-going development, refinement, implementation and delivery.

See the Terms of Reference and minutes from previous meetings

LA Practitioners’ Operational Group

The joint DWP and LA POG discusses operational issues relating to Housing Benefit and Universal Credit. It meets on a bi-monthly basis and summary minutes of those meetings are published on our LA pages on GOV.UK at:

Read the joint DWP and LA POG meeting minutes

If you have any questions please email: [email protected]

Universal Credit Statistics

The latest UC statistics were published on 13 November and the headline analysis shows:

• 1.3 million claimants now on UC
• Of these, 470,000 (36%) were in employment at 12 July 2018

The Universal Credit statistics are published monthly.

We can also confirm that as of 29 November we have:

• 26 UC Service Centres
• 594 Jobcentres in Universal Credit Full Service and the rollout of the Full Service will complete, as planned, in December 2018

Housing Benefit Information

See the latest HB General Information Bulletins

See the latest HB Direct newsletters

Housing Delivery Division have replaced the existing HB Direct and General Information Bulletin with a new external communication publication which is called LA Welfare Direct. The first edition was published in September.

Read the LA Welfare Direct bulletins