A LABOUR councillor in Worcester has welcomed the news that the rollout of Universal Credit will be put back to October next year.

The announcement by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) came after last week’s budget which announced changes to the scheme – and two days later Worcester City councillors voted by 18 to 17 to ask the authority to write to the government requesting a ‘pause’.

But Councillor Joy Squires, representing the Arboretum ward, who put forward the motion, said there are many people already in Worcester receiving Universal Credit, and some have experienced significant hardship as a consequence.

The DWP said there have been 2135 claims for in the city so far.

Cllr Squires said: “Although the full rollout hasn’t happened yet, and I welcome the delay, since January single people and families whose circumstances have changed have transferred to Universal Credit, so it’s affected quite a lot of people.”

At the city council meeting last week, Cllr Squires told of two recipients – one a single man who needed an advance of £100 from the DWP because of the six-week delay in receiving benefits when transferring to Universal Credit.

She said that repaying the advance had put the man in two months arrears with his rent and that he will be paying it back until March, and she added: “He’s very lucky that his landlord has accepted that – but if he’d had a different attitude or it was a different landlord, he could have been thrown out, and I know that some landlords have been reluctant to take on people on Universal Credit as tenants because there’s no guarantee they’ll be paid on time .”

The second case Cllr Squires told of was a working couple with four young children who, again because of the delay in receiving payments, were forced to go to Worcester Foodbank.

Cllr Squires said: “They were both working and sharing childcare but had been caught out by the delay and also the freeze in benefits since 2015.

“The new system is designed to pay people at the end of the month, like a salary at work, and if you get a job, you always have to wait until the end of the month, which is fine if you’ve got savings to call on – but people on benefits often don’t have any savings and they are made desperate.

“I welcome the delay to the full rollout so that these problems can be sorted out, but there are many people who’ve already been forced into poverty by the move to Universal Credit.”

The DWP announced this week that benefits would remain frozen at 2015 levels for another year, and said the rollout was delayed to administer changes announced in the budget such as a reduction to the waiting time to five weeks, extending advances from six to 12 months, and making it possible to direct housing payments to landlords.