09 March 2021
Most of the attention in post-budget analysis of social security announcements rightly went to the government’s decision to extend the £20 uplift to universal credit (UC) by just six months. However, the budget also outlined changes to how the government reclaims advance payments made to UC claimants.
07 January 2021
More than one million households forced to claim universal credit (UC) when coronavirus struck are entering the New Year having debt deductions taken from their UC, and almost all include repayments of an advance taken out to get them through the five-week wait for a first UC payment, new analysis for the Covid Realities research project shows.
20 October 2020
Our response to the Cabinet Office’s call for evidence regarding fairness in government debt management draws on cases from the Early Warning System. It focusses on the debt deductions which are applied in universal credit claims, which are subject to complicated rules and high rates which cause hardship.
10 July 2020
This is the ninth in a series of briefings, Mind the Gaps, which highlight some of the gaps in support that exist for children and families affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Evidence of these gaps is drawn from our Early Warning System (EWS) which collects case studies from frontline practitioners working directly with families on the problems they are seeing with the social security system.
With living costs continuing to rise, budgets squeezed and problem debt on the increase, no adviser should be without this essential guide to the practice and process of money advice in England and Wales
