Universal Credit has finally come to Brent, and we can expect some deeply harrowing stories as a result. I have seen the disastrous effects elsewhere in London including talking to a person I thought was near suicidal.
Central government has made a bad system worse by reducing funding, but it was always going to be awful because the people concerned tend to have very little financial resilience and are part of the "gig economy". The system is really based on the assumption that people have infrequent periods of unemployment and that they get reasonable pay when they are in work. For many people that is just not true. The only people who can really solve this problem are central government, and only a change in government is likely to lead to that sort of change.
In the meantime, although it is something of a sticking plaster only, I think Brent Council should review how its local welfare schemes are designed and advertised. This will only have limited impact, but is at least something that the Council could be doing.
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