The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has started telling 500 disabled people on unemployment benefits to move to universal credit, just days after a Conservative minister assured MPs that no claimant would face such a move until September.
DWP previously announced that it would begin rolling out universal credit to the remaining Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and ESA with Housing Benefit claimants in September.
That date was confirmed by Employment Minister Jo Churchill (depicted) last month, when she told MPs in a written statement that this extension would not take effect until September.
Churchill, who is not running for re-election as an MP, wrote on May 21: “Our current planning assumption is that we would start briefing this group in September 2024, with the aim of notifying everyone to take the step by December 2025 . ”
But less than two weeks later, on June 3, DWP began sending out so-called “migration notices” to around 500 ESA claimants in Wolverhampton and East Suffolk.
This was reported by social charity Rightsnet.
DWP said in an email to “stakeholders”: “The aim of this activity is to gather further knowledge to inform our planning for large-scale migration of these cohorts in due course, with one of the key lessons learned I would like to understand what proportion of households will need support through the improved support pathway.”
DWP had asked welfare rights advisers not to share this “operational update” publicly as it wanted to “assuage the concerns of people on ESA and not give the wrong impression to people on ESA that we have moved from our publicly stated plan to start migrating people from September.”
Disability activist Gail Ward, a long-time member of the grassroots groups Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle Campaign, and founder of the Hand2MouthProject, which helps and trains those claiming universal recognition of how the system works, said Churchill’s written statement was “absolutely misleading “.
She added: “I am concerned for the claimants because, as usual, they are being used as guinea pigs.”
Ward said Churchill had also misled MPs by telling them that DWP had “developed and tested a new ‘enhanced support pathway’ for income support, employment and support benefit clients who need extra help”, when the email suggested this had not yet been done. had been completed and was still being done. to be tested.
She said: “It seems the DWP is in a mess and needs reform as staff are often just as unsure about the rules as claimants.
“Complainers tell me when they call [DWP] they are told one thing, and when the claimant asks questions about it later, they are told something else by another customer service representative.”
Disability News Service (DNS) has asked Churchill to explain why DWP misled MPs about the department’s migration plans, and when it made the decision to send out the June migration notices.
She had not responded by 11am today (Thursday).
DWP was unable to comment in detail due to the rules civil servants must follow once a general election is called.
But it said: “We are regularly undertaking small-scale learning activities to develop our approach, ahead of plans to move large numbers of existing benefits customers later this year.
“This activity does not change previous statements on universal credit migration.”
DWP has been confronted with two coroner’s reports and concerns from its own staff about its failure to ensure the working age benefits system is safe for claimants in vulnerable situations.
Just last week, DNS reported that DWP and the Cabinet Office had both failed to find a report detailing how DWP was supporting ‘vulnerable’ people reliant on universal credit.
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