Over 90 per cent of Universal Credit staff say IT system is 'less than adequate'

PCS fires back at DWP over suggestion that survey is not representative of Universal Credit workforce

More than 90 per cent (90.4 per cent) of Universal Credit staff believe that the IT system they use is "less than adequate" to efficiently deliver Universal Credit, according to a survey by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS).

The survey was conducted among staff in four Universal Credit centres, which at the time employed 820 people. Five hundred and one people responded, and of these 411 said that they worked on Universal Credit. PCS told Computing that between 336 and 347 of these people answered the questions.

The key question asked whether the IT system that staff used was adequate to efficiently deliver Universal Credit. Only three people or 0.9 per cent of respondents said that it was "more than adequate", 21 or 6.1 per cent of respondents said that it was adequate. A whopping 310 respondents said that the system was less than adequate, while the remaining nine people were unsure.

PCS confirmed to Computing in an email that account directors and call handlers were asked questions online as part of the survey. The survey was publicised via email, paper briefings and word of mouth.

Of the anonymous quotes that the PCS obtained, one claimed that the system was not working, and that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) "could put a million staff on this and it will never work".

The findings echoed views of a Jobcentre employee who told Channel 4's Dispatches that the project, which aims to merge six benefits into a single monthly payment, was "completely unworkable, badly designed, and already out of date".

Despite this, DWP hit back at PCS in a statement, suggesting that the survey comprises only 13 per cent of the 2,700 staff working on Universal Credit.

"They chose to ignore staff in our Jobcentres when conducting this research providing a skewed unrepresentative sample of union members," a spokesperson said.

But PCS told Computing that it was confident as it could be in a survey of this nature that it got a representative response.

"The response rate was relatively high and the results were monitored after the first 100 responses and remained consistent," a PCS spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that 76.7 per cent of respondents said they had "no active involvement in PCS activities", while only 5.5 per cent were PCS representatives. A further 5.5 per cent said they had "no formal role" but were regularly involved in PCS campaigns and activities, while 12.4 per cent had "no formal role" but were occasionally involved in PCS campaigns.

Other problems highlighted by the report included training and staffing. The release of the PCS survey results coincided with another Channel 4 Dispatches documentary that involved a reporter working undercover at the DWP. The reporter was told by trainers not to tell claimants about same-day advance payments for clothes, bus fares and other expenses, which could be claimed by those who are struggling to, make ends meet.

When the reporter asked why this was, the trainer said: "If we did, everybody would want one, yea, and it's a very small budget, so we don't talk about it.

"It's a bit like Fight Club - we don't discuss what happens in Fight Club. So you don't talk about flexible support fund either... so the work coaches usually bring this up."

The DWP's flagship initiative has been hampered by constant delays and issues, with MPs recently stating that the £700m project was failing to live up to expectations. It was the latest in a long line of criticisms on the scheme from MPs, former staff and current employees.