A Labour government would call a three-month halt to Universal Credit, the flagship government welfare reform, until a full review had been conducted by the National Audit Office, Rachel Reeves has announced.

“We are incredibly concerned about the IT and delivery of it. This is a £12.8bn project,” She said the review the party would conduct once in office would lead to “hard-headed decisions about whether Universal Credit can be rescued”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27963650

See also

http://labourlist.org/2014/06/four-steps-labour-would-take-to-fix-universal-credit/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LabourListLatestPosts+%28LabourList%29

 

http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/uploads/editor/files/UCRC_final_report.pdf

 

'First, a Labour government would order a three-month pause to the troubled programmme. This brief break would enable a thorough review to take place so we could examine value for money, the management and delivery of the policy.

Second, we will call in the independent National Audit Office to scrutinise universal credit and to make sure the review’s conclusions are robust. We will also ask the National Audit Office to produce quarterly reports for Parliament on the progress of this major government scheme, aiming to increase transparency and openness on a policy that has been shrouded in secrecy.

Third, if universal credit goes ahead we will make big changes to help families by reversing the government’s decision to not given payments to the main carer of children in a household. This has disproportionately affected women. A Labour government will ensure payments of benefits for children are made to the person who is caring for them, not just the main earner.

Finally, Labour will make changes to universal credit to cut red tape for the self-employed. Under the current regime, the growing number of people who are self-employed are at risk of increased bureaucracy because they will have to understand and complete three separate sets of accounting rules in order to comply with Government regulations.'