“Rolling out universal credit in its current form will steamroll vulnerable people into poverty, but the government has time to turn this around by accepting our recommendations and making it easier to apply,” said Rebecca Keating, the Salvation Army’s employment director said.
There is concern among campaigners and even the
government’s own social security advisers that the government has not done enough to ensure vulnerable claimants do not fall out of the system altogether when they are transferred to universal credit in the process called managed migration, which is due to start in late autumn.
Claimants with mental health problems, learning disabilities and physical disabilities, as well as homeless people were especially at risk, it said. Some lacked computer skills, or could not access the internet because they did not own a smart phone or because there was no public computer nearby.