ON A visit to Sussex on February 16th, David Cameron announced that, if the Conservatives win the election on May 7th, young people who are out of work, education or training for six months will have to do unpaid community work to get benefits. The speech was part of a pre-election push to show the Conservative Party is tough on welfare reform (though critics insist such schemes rarely boost employment). “The well-worn path—from the school gate down to the job centre and on to a life on benefits—has got to be rubbed away,” said the prime minister.

The welfare bill has fallen a bit as unemployment drops. But the main attempt to reform working-age benefits—known as universal credit (UC)—has gone awry. In 2011 Mr Cameron said it would be part of “the most ambitious, fundamental and radical changes to the welfare system since it began”. The latest stage of UC was also rolled out of February 16th, but its future is not certain at all.

UC combines six working-age benefits, including tax credits, housing benefit and job-seeker’s allowance, into a single payment. It aims to provide the poorest Britons with a ladder to climb out of welfare dependency by simplifying a system that provides perverse incentives to stay on benefits rather than work. Its champion, Iain Duncan Smith, the secretary for work and pensions, claims it is as much about changing culture as about saving money.

The project has crawled along, hitting many obstacles on the way, such as an overly ambitious timetable that had to be reset in 2013 and an IT system that had to be scrapped, costing tens of millions of pounds. Mr Duncan Smith clashed often with George Osborne, the harder-nosed chancellor of the exchequer.

Other problems have come from technical complexities, such as linking the tax system’s computers with those at the department for work and pensions. Critics say that moving all claims online is foolish when many people do not even have access to a computer. Similarly foolish, they say, are plans to pay benefits monthly rather than weekly to people who cannot budget, and to give housing benefit to claimants who may squander it rather than directly to the landlords of their government-funded housing. Defenders say the poor need to be given more responsibility. “The current benefits system is just ‘process and pay’,” says Christian Guy, Mr Duncan Smith’s former speechwriter, now head of the Centre for Social Justice. “UC makes the assumption of ambition.”

This week’s limited rollout will mean that 250 job centres—roughly one in three—will offer UC. But these numbers refer to a system used for single recipients with no dependents. The bigger “digital” system, covering complex claimants with children, has not yet been tested. “The reason this week’s announcement means nothing is that we still don’t know if the system works for most people,” says Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. “They’re rolling out a system they are not going to use.” The government hoped that 1m people would be using UC by April 2014, but only 64,000 have used it so far.

There is no guarantee it will be implemented in full, even if the Tories form the next government. “I wouldn’t put money on UC continuing under either major party,” says Colin Talbot of the University of Manchester. Opponents say gains will be marginal, costs huge and that the best policy would be to scrap it. They accuse Mr Duncan Smith and his team of trying to change the world. “At least someone is trying,” retorts Mr Guy.