To be absolutely fking sick of Universal Credit

The system is terrible but people keep voting to punish the poor under the guise of 'fairness'... I get UC despite working full time, having no dependents and not having had a rent increase for 15 years. And I'm not on minimum wage either, I'm a Universal Credit work coach.

Yup. There's a really good universal credit group on Facebook which corrects many mistakes made by bad advisors.

Use a breakfast club, that adds another hour to your working availability. Or is it too inconvenient for you too?

I know the OP has responded to this already, but lol. "Just use a breakfast club" the waiting list for wraparound care at our school is 18 months long 😂

This.
I'm on UC due to a divorce. Having to walk into the Job Centre and have the staff look at me with judgement was very hard.
I work hard but part time due to being there for my children as a single parent.
Soon my house are meant to increase but I don't know how on earth to manage that for my children.

It's hard too for the penalties. So I had a small tax rebate which I was hoping to use on my daughter's birthday...but of course I was penalised heavily on this as if it were income rather than the government paying me back a debt owed.

I am thankful that we have it. But it's hard to have to use it.

Benefits are public money, our own taxes, I’d rather they were overly bureaucratic and follow the rules than to make it “easy” for people to claim and potentially abuse the system.

I've claimed my UC top up for 4 years. It's been very easy for me. I've never had to set foot in a job centre. All I'm asked to do is provide proof of my childcare costs every month which takes 10 minutes of my time.

I think your comment just proves you don't fully understand how the system works. Despite it being easy for me to claim what I am entitled to, it would be very difficult for me to claim fraudulently. I wouldn't be able to claim more childcare costs than I get because I have to provide proof of these every month. I couldn't pretend to have a tenancy agreement/rent because you have to upload proof of that too. I couldn't pretend to have another child because I couldn't provide another birth certificate.

Yes, i'm very grateful. But it just shows it CAN be easy to do whilst still providing people with what they need.

When my mum was working, she worked in a field that meant she could write reports / provide evidence to help some people claim DLA for their children. She said the amount of time it took and how complicated the system was for people to get what they need was utterly ridiculous. And some people needed the money so they could make their homes accessible for their children to, you know, live in.

It's correct that I am not a net contributor. But most people aren't unless they are high earners.

Not all schools have them!

Same when you ring DWP up - if you can get through after a 5 hour wait - in one week both DH and I rang on separate occassions (tax credits era) and were told different things. They also didn't make a record of the calls so right hand deffo did not know what left hand was doing. I work in a library, and we are under strict orders to maintain consistency with our users. We have note fields in each account to log phone conversations so all the team know what the history is.

I cannot believe that if a flaming library can organise themselves, the DWP can't. Really? Something has gone dreadfully wrong and is wasting a lot of money and time through mismanagement and inefficiency.

I think we should have Dragon's Den but for failing NHS managers, DWP etc. Let Alan Sugar loose on them (not to privitise just to point out shortcomings). If I was making the programme he'd have to appear for free, in the national interest of transparency.

Yep, my husband and I both work full time (although I’m term time only). Still have to claim UC. It’s soul destroying to be honest! People have no idea.

If you read my reply properly….
My work coach told me to submit them by the 11th of each month.
The claim was stopped because I hadn’t submitted them by the 9th.

I hadn’t passed the deadline.

She didn't miss the deadline, unless we have slipped into some parallel universe where 11 comes before 9

No but I was raised by one

I’m sorry, why didn’t you submit your earnings by the specified date? That was a deadline, so if is fairly obvious to me what will happen if you miss it. People seem to think systems are designed to flex around them - they aren’t. They are designed to (hopefully) roll people back into full time employment, not create cracks for people to disappear into. Ultimately the DWP would like to have fewer clients 😂

You have a stable part time job which doesn't pay you enough to live on. So you can either work more hours or spend the time you are not working for pay wrestling with the UC system, which is just another form of work. I know which I'd rather do.

No wonder this country has such a bad reputation when it comes to work ethic. Minor admin and bureaucratic inconveniences are portrait on this thread as huge problems.

I don’t claim benefits but I have to deal with various government departments on a regular basis, including my own employer. Guess what, mistakes are made. We all have to make telephone calls, write complaints to get what we need, appeal, chase things, sort out misunderstandings. This often has to be done during work hours as the normal 9-5 applies to most gov departments. I do all those things even when I’m the paying customer, for example applying for a new passport.
I don’t think I’d dare to complain if I had to jump through hoops to receive money that other taxpayers provide me. (Yes I know most of you work but let’s be honest if you receive benefits for a prolonged period of time you are most likely costing the country more than you’re bringing in in tax payments). And not everyone is a carer providing a very important service.

Tax credits used to be easy and they mostly left people alone except for an annual review…it led to massive overpayments that some people are still paying back today.
Benefits are public money, our own taxes, I’d rather they were overly bureaucratic and follow the rules than to make it “easy” for people to claim and potentially abuse the system.

I do hope you've never claimed benefits in your life, (including child benefit)? Or used the NHS at any point? Otherwise other people have been paying for you! Urgh, what a cheapskate freeloader you are, so frickin entitled.

Use a breakfast club, that adds another hour to your working availability. Or is it too inconvenient for you too?

Thanks so much!

Like hundreds and thousands of unpaid carers in the UK, I provide 24/7 care for free and save the government an estimated £162 BILLION per year. I do hope the air isn't too thin up there on your high horse.

Keep your fingers crossed though, we are all just an accident or an illness or a catastrophic stroke away from permanent life changing disability, and you too could be enjoying a life of luxury at the expensive of "tHe TaXpAyEr" if you are really lucky.

A childminder then? Then you'd be traveling 2 hours for a 7 hour day. I don't want to kick you when you're down @scorpiogirly but most people, including single parents, don't just work school hours jobs they use childcare to allow them to work.

Many schools don't have after school clubs. There might be the odd five weeks of craft club or cheerleading but not a proper after school provision.

I did and I have but I don’t agree with kicking people when they are at rock bottom (DWP, not you). But I did it myself without their help.

It’s not an ‘inconvenience’, I jumped through all the hoops because I was grateful for the help. What I do object to, is them taking advantage of people and ensuring they don’t have a voice.

For example, I was specifically told by my work coach to submit my SE earnings by 11th of the month.
They closed my claim because I hadn’t submitted my earnings by the 9th. What would you do in that scenario?
How can anyone work within a system where two people who work for the same company tell you two different things?
Its incredibly frustrating.