rlhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/12/universal-credit-less-payrl

Sounds like a fairly typical civil service dogs dinner of an idea, will they plough ahead with it - of course they will, look at who is in charge of the project, he'll simply "believe" the facts up for a compliant press to report on.

The tax credit system that Gordon Brown dreamed up was a complicated system, so complicated that its staff did not understand how it worked or who it applied to, or even how much to pay you - I have direct experience of this, have been given wrong advice in the past, was overpaid to the tune of several thousand pounds by virtue of a civil servant ticking one box incorrectly during a phone interview and am now having to pay back that money - I involved my MP and he got the head of the Tax Credits office in Preston to correspond with me but the result was unequivocal - its up to you to confirm that all the details are correct, in other words its up to you to know the forms and systems better than the people who work there and its up to you to correct their errors and omissions.

I'm only glad that that was my one and only time for claiming anything from the benefits system, my heart bleeds for anyone who has to do it on a permanent basis.

I have just read that link.
Once again, we see that what IDS says is the opposite of the truth.
The simple truth is that he is cutting benefits for people whether out of work or in work.
He can dress it up as "incentivising people into work" all he likes but the fact remains, he's lying.

When is some hack going to have the balls to ask him the obvious bleedin' question: 'what work?'? And then go further and point out to him not only the actual unemployed figure, but the increasing public knowledge of underemployment, plus the paucity of actual jobs being advertised.

I have recently been involved in a social housing project where part way through the build, what were to be 4 and 5 bedroom houses were reduced to 3 and 4 bedroom houses by demolishing a wall because of the bedroom tax which is causing the housing association in question real problems. The cost implication of demolishing the walls will cost more than absorbing the tax for probably 10 years. The reason the housing association instructed us to do the extra work is because the work is funded by the government through grants, etc. There is now a family of 9 living in a 4 bedroom house to avoid the tax.

The government really showed those work-shy scroungers!

Why don't the f***ing useless Labour Party and its even more f***ing useless leader explain that then? Or are they in it together too?

I have just read it as well and what struck me was thisThis reversal is a direct result of benefit cuts, not counted into early universal credit plans. Instead, ministers continue to make claims they must surely know to be false. Here's Lord Freud againbut they have devised a remedy. Is it to restore the cuts causing this, or to soften the taper so universal credit is withdrawn more slowly? No, there are no new carrots, only their new stick. For the first time people in part-time work will be sanctioned with benefit stoppages if they don't prove they are looking for more hours'

So yes they can claim the more hours they work the better off they are but only because benefits are stopped not because work has suddenly started paying! You can bet your life that won't stop them making the claim as technically it's correct.

Well maybe they should learn to take some personal responsibility for themselves.

Budgeting is a skill and if they can't do it, they should learn.

Hardly heartless is it asking people to learn a new skill? A skill which will benefit that person for the rest of their lives.

The other point that Ajw71 conveniently 'forgets' is that for many people on low and very low incomes it's nearly impossible to budget to start with, given both low incomes and the cost of living, and is rendered even more so by anything happening like, say, the boiler going.

But hey, it's a useful lifeskill that [ithey[/i should learn – [ithey[/i being an homogenised group that someone like Ajw71 feels able to look down on without actually bothering to engage his brain cell.

Nearly impossible? - more sensationalist rubbish. Any excuse just so benefit claimants cannot take some personal responsibility! Don't you want them to make a better life for themselves, don't you want them to improve their life chances?




"many claimants cannot budget" - Cod'ed.

Negative stereotyping hey.

Take yer blue spex off!! You're saying Coddys stereo typing but aren't you doing the same assuming its only benefit claimants who can't budget