Failures in universal credit are fixed into the system thanks to inadequate IT, according to the Guardian. Although presented as a revelation, the problems were seen coming some years ago. Minsters themselves admitted it was not going to work, but their response was simply to seek to blame others rather than effectively prevent the malfunction.
It all rather reminds me of Brexit.
We all know it is not going to work. We fail to swerve to avoid the disaster clearly visible down the road and the poorest people are the ones who are hit hardest.
The one small comfort that I take from this is that Brent Council appears to be one of what is now only a minority of Councils operating a Local Welfare system. This can be of huge importance in individual cases. The government has been effectively trying to destroy this kind of local welfare support.
I played some part in designing the Brent scheme at the same time as designing Brent's Council Tax Support arrangements, and I hope it can continue.
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