Joanne Huggins, 37, worked on the universal credit helpline in the Grimsby service centre for nearly two years before quitting in April. She had worked in social housing and understood the social security system but was still surprised by what she found.



Universal credit IT system 'broken', whistleblowers say Read more

“I did not expect it to be so fundamentally flawed,” she said.



She had hoped she would be able to help resolve the problems reported by claimants, some of whom would call in upset after payments were late, or were unexpectedly reduced, but soon found the system resistant to offering quick or easy assistance.

“It felt like these were not people that you serve, not customers, not important, but people who get in the way of what you are are trying to do, which was to hit call targets,” she said.

Q&A Tell us: do you work within the universal credit system? Show Hide To help us further understand the issue, we'd like to hear from people who have experience working with universal credit claims or claimants. You can share your experiences using our encrypted form at this link, anonymously if you wish. Your responses will only be seen by the Guardian and we will treat them confidentially.

Click here to see other ways to contact the Guardian securely.

It was “heartbreaking” having to block or deflect vulnerable claimants, telling them that they would not be paid, or would have to submit a new claim, or have a claim closed for missing a jobcentre appointment, or be sanctioned – a penalty fine for breaching benefit conditions – or go to the food bank.

The system felt crude rather than intuitive, and her role often felt adversarial. “It was more about getting the person off the phone, not helping.”

It did not help that claimants regularly received different advice in different parts of the social security system. In some cases she would tell callers they had to make an appointment with the jobcentre work coach to solve a problem, only for the work coach to tell them to contact the call centre.

She was surprised by how people left waiting and penniless by the system often did not vigorously pursue the delay or error. “I was surprised by how little contact they had with us. It was as if they just sensed the system was unhelpful and they couldn’t rely on it.”



Bayard Tarpley, 27, also worked in the Grimsby centre. He said the system was not only avoidably complex but failed to anticipate that claimants may find it difficult. Claimant errors could be triggered by poor wording, could be hard to spot and difficult to swiftly correct.

“A common example of a seemingly trivial claimant error causing problems is where people have a tenancy agreement that shows a weekly rent figure, even though they pay their rent monthly. So they might enter, say, £75 a month in answer to the question of how much rent they pay,” he said.



Quick guide What is universal credit and what are the problems? Show Hide What is universal credit? Universal credit (UC) is the supposed flagship reform of the benefits system, rolling together six benefits into one, online-only system. The theoretical aim, for which there was general support across the political spectrum, was to simplify the system and increase the incentives for people to move off benefits into work. About 2 million people are currently in receipt of UC. More than 6 million will be on the benefit by the time it is fully rolled out. How long has it been around? The project was legislated for in 2011 under the auspices of its most vocal champion, Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith. The plan was to roll it out by 2017. However, a series of management failures, expensive IT blunders and design faults mean it is now seven years behind schedule, and rollout will not be complete until 2024. The government admitted that the delay was caused in part by claimants being too scared to sign up to the new benefit. What is the biggest problem? The original design set out a minimum 42-day wait for a first payment to claimants when they moved to UC (in practice this is often up to 60 days). After sustained pressure, the government announced in the autumn 2017 budget that the wait would be reduced to 35 days from February 2018. This will partially mitigate the impact on many claimants of having no income for six weeks. The wait has led to rent arrears and evictions, hunger (food banks in UC areas report notable increases in referrals), use of expensive credit and mental distress. Ministers have expanded the availability of hardship loans (now repayable over a year) to help new claimants while they wait for payment. Housing benefit will now continue for an extra two weeks after the start of a UC claim. However, critics say the five-week wait is still too long and want it reduced to two or three weeks. Are there other problems? Plenty. Multibillion-pound cuts to work allowances imposed by the former chancellor George Osborne mean UC is far less generous than originally envisaged. According to the Resolution Foundation thinktank, about 2.5m low-income working households will be more than £1,000 a year worse off when they move to UC, reducing work incentives.

Landlords are worried that the level of rent arrears accrued by tenants on UC could lead to a rise in evictions. It's also not very user-friendly: claimants complain the system is complex, unreliable and difficult to manage, particularly if you have no internet access.

And there is concern that UC cannot deliver key promises: a critical study found it does not deliver savings, cannot prove it gets more people into work, and has plunged vulnerable claimants into hardship.

“This can get verified because the case manager missed the issue, and as a result the claimant receives £75 for housing support at the end of the month. We get an angry phone call and spend a week or two resolving it.”

Tarpley gives countless examples of how his experience showed that the system is designed irrationally, or clumsily, or in a way that confuses staff as well as claimants and leads directly to people not receiving the money they need.

Claimants can call three times in a row and get three different answers. ​Bayard Tarpley

“Universal credit is like one of those old Disney cartoons with a leaky boat. The holes spring up, and Bugs Bunny or whoever sticks a finger in, but then a new hole appears, and they end up sprawled across the boat trying to block all the leaks. The holes aren’t the problem, though, it’s the boat,” he said.

Staff often get confused by the welter of system updates, guidance and memos. “This results in a massive variation in understanding between agents, teams and especially service centres, meaning that claimants can call three times in a row and get three different answers to a query.”

This piled excessive responsibilities on to call centre staff, he said. “When people call up with very specific questions about how their terminal illness affects their benefit, it’s me that answers that question. It’s me that has to judge whether it’s appropriate to ask a claimant if her third child is the result of sexual assault because it may affect her benefit entitlement.

“The decisions I make on a daily basis have an impact on how quickly someone is able to pay their landlord, turn the heating back on, get their children to school. I have made decisions that have resulted in people being evicted, and decisions I have made have led people to tell me that it is the reason they are self-harming.



“I would argue that I am scarcely qualified for any of those things, never mind all of them.”