The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has announced that Universal Credit will go live in the Greater Manchester and Cheshire region in April 2013, six months before the national roll-out. The early roll out of the Government’s flagship new benefit system is expected to see up to 1500 new Universal Credit claimants coming on stream across four areas – Tameside, Oldham, Wigan and Warrington - each month. It will test the new simpler, single benefit payment system with local authorities, employers and claimants in a live environment before Universal Credit is rolled out across the country in October 2013. “By sweeping away the complexities of the current benefit system, Universal Credit will be simpler and more straightforward for people to claim and this early roll out marks a significant step in the delivery of our welfare reforms. “The early introduction of Universal Credit demonstrates our ongoing commitment to transforming the welfare system and will improve the lives of millions of claimants by incentivising work and making work pay.” Work will continue over the coming months to ensure that jobcentres, local authorities and employers in the Greater Manchester and Cheshire region are geared up to support the new service ahead of the early roll out in April. Lord Freud the Minister for Welfare Reform said: “The development of Universal Credit is progressing extremely well. By next April we will be ready to test the end to end service and use the feedback we get from claimants to make final improvements before the national launch. This will ensure that we have a robust and reliable new service for people to make a claim when Universal Credit goes live nationally in October 2013.” Today Ministers have also confirmed that Universal Credit will be introduced across Britain, starting on a small scale in every region from October 2013 and building up capacity to April 2014, when all new claims to the current benefits and credits will be entirely phased out. People who have recently lost their jobs and are closest to the labour market will be the first to make a claim for Universal Credit, with the majority making claims online rather than by telephone or face to face. The CIPP has read with interest this latest announcement from the DWP. They have confirmed that they will be rolling out Universal Credits in the Greater Manchester and the Cheshire region in April 2013, 6 months earlier than planned. Why this is of interest is that as we know “most” employers will be processing RTI from April 2013, but we also know that HMRC will afford some flexibility for the largest of employers and possibly some payroll bureaus before they enter the RTI world, although all will still be required to be on board by October 2013. Assuming this to still be the case, and assuming that the DWP still intend to utilise information submitted by employers in real time, what will they do if one of their claimants in these areas happens to work for a large employer that has agreed a later RTI entry date? Read the full DWP press release Iain Duncan Smith said:
MANDATORY WORK ACTIVITY SCHEME EXTENDED
20 June 2012
CIPP Policy News Journal
12/04/2013, Page 357 of 362
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