Universal credit: Government to publish internal reviews of controversial benefit in new U-turn

Assessments failed to produce evidence that more people would be helped into work, say MPs who viewed them

Esther McVey conceded there was ‘no point’ in fighting publication any longer (EPA)

Internal reviews of universal credit, which expose holes in the case for the controversial new benefit according to MPs, will be published in a government U-turn.

Ministers have abandoned attempts to keep the assessments under wraps after being forced to release them to a Commons committee and after criticism by the independent Information Commissioner.

Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, conceded there was “no point in continuing to argue” for restricted access to the documents, after the committee issued a report on them.

In a written statement, Ms McVey argued the reviews, conducted between 2012 and 2015, were out-of-date, saying: “Come 2018, the universal credit programme is in a very different place since those reports were written.”

However, in a damning report last month, the Work and Pensions Committee – whose members were allowed to see them – said they failed to make the case for extending universal credit.

There was no evidence that more people would be helped into work, as ministers claim, or that an automated online service could be run successfully on a national scale, it warned.

Frank Field, its Labour chairman, accused the Government of “management gobbledegook” and said the architect of the welfare state, William Beveridge, “will be rolling in his grave”.

The programme, replacing six working-age benefits with a single payment, was in its eighth year, but the Government had “yet to produce the full business case for its own mega reform”.

“The programme managers appear to expect us, the public, and the minister responsible to take it on faith that universal credit will deliver the much improved employment outcomes they claim for the vast range of people – disabled, single parents, carers, the self-employed – who will claim UC,” Mr Field said last month.

“At the moment, they are relying on the simplest cases – single, unemployed claimants with no children. They have produced no evidence to back up the key, central economic assumption of the biggest reform to our welfare system in 50 years.

“The reviews, which barely mention claimants, are also shot through with management gobbledegook. Were I the minister in charge, I would have either rejected or ignored much of it entirely as totally incomprehensible.”

But Ms McVey said the committee had agreed “the historic issues” have now been addressed and “substantial achievements have been delivered since 2013”.

They commended the department for running the universal credit programme “more professionally and efficiently with a collective sense of purpose”, she said.

And she insisted the decision to release the assessments to the public was “exceptional”, with future reports still to be “treated as confidential”.

Last year, Conservative MPs forced extra help for universal credit claimants, after joining with opposition parties in pleading for an urgent rethink.

The Government agreed to slash the wait for a first payment from six weeks to five, although the revolt had demanded a cut to four weeks.

However, cuts to the “work allowance” – the amount of earnings kept before claimants lose benefits – has swiped more than £1,200 a year from many families.