Universal Credit: What's gone wrong and can it be fixed?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Work and Pensions Secretary, Amber Rudd, this week announced that the next stage of the Universal Credit roll-out is to be scaled back amid concerns about the controversial new benefits system.
So what were the origins of the Universal Credit policy and can its flaws be fixed?
CONTRIBUTORS
Roy Sainsbury - Professor of Social Policy at the University of York
Baroness Philippa Stroud - former government advisor and CEO of the Legatum Institute
Kayley Hignell - Head of Policy for Family, Welfare and Work at Citizens Advice
Fran Bennett - Senior Research Fellow at the Department for Social Policy and Intervention at Oxford University
Torsten Bell - Director of the Resolution Foundation
Deven Ghelani - Founder of Policy in Practice
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Oronovich. |
| 0:04.9 | Step inside and find out what you need to know about the issues that matter from people who really understand what they're talking about. |
| 0:12.4 | You can subscribe to the podcast via BBC Sounds if it works for you, and especially if it doesn't and you know how maybe it could. |
| 0:20.0 | Tell us what you think by writing a review or rating us on your podcast provider. |
| 0:24.5 | This week, we're talking about universal credit, the new system of benefit payment. It affects millions, |
| 0:31.4 | and Amber Rudd, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has announced a delay to its rollout. |
| 0:36.7 | Our question today, what's gone wrong and can it be |
| 0:39.9 | fixed? And if you enjoy this podcast, you might enjoy other editions of the briefing room, which are all |
| 0:45.4 | available on BBC Sounds. Threat of Revolt forces threat of revolt forces rethink of catastrophic universal credit. |
| 1:01.9 | That was how one broadsheet newspaper headlined a decision by the work and pension secretary |
| 1:06.5 | Amber Rudd earlier this week to, in effect, delay the implementation of the new benefit system. |
| 1:13.6 | Away from Brexit, it seems no single area of policies troubling the government more than |
| 1:18.5 | Universal Credit. Eventually, 7 million households and therefore many more than 7 million people |
| 1:25.1 | will be receiving the benefit. So what is Universal Credit? Why is it being |
| 1:30.3 | introduced? Why has it been such a problem? And can that problem be solved? Step into the |
| 1:36.1 | briefing room and you and I will find out. Universal Credit hasn't come from nowhere. |
| 1:47.0 | So why was it introduced in the first place? |
| 1:50.4 | Serena Tarling spoke to two of its early champions, |
| 1:53.5 | starting with Roy Sainsbury, Professor of Social Policy at the University of York. |
| 2:00.6 | We've had benefits for over a century in this country. |
| 2:03.6 | As the result of much intensive study into questions of social security, |
| 2:08.6 | Sir William Beveridge is the recognised authority on present day and... |
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