The roll-out of Universal Credit (UC) is set to speed up again in the coming months. Already covering around 730,000 cases, that figure is set to rise towards two million over the next year. Importantly, a system which has so far largely dealt with single unemployed people will start to include an increasing number of working families, and those with children.
The system now faces two big tests – can it handle a far greater number of claims, and can it cope with more complicated cases, where households are entitled to multiple elements of support such as for housing, the number of children or childcare costs. After all, it’s relatively easy to determine the level of benefit entitlement for a single unemployed person. For a family with children, the number of characteristics and changes in circumstances month-to-month soon start to multiply.
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