From disaster to completion: What can government learn from the Universal Credit story?

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Almost 15 years on from the coalition government’s white paper Universal Credit: Welfare that Works, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has finally concluded that its overhaul of the benefits systems is nearly complete. A few thousand people are yet to be transferred from tax credits, income support and Jobseeker’s Allowance, and a rather larger numbers are still on Employment and Support Allowance, but the DWP is confident of completion by the end of the year. The Universal Credit programme board has been closed down and the department plans to publish its version of “lessons learned” from a programme that was meant to have taken seven years from the white paper but will have taken 15.

So what can this and future governments learn from the delivery of this major reform programme? How was the Universal Credit project turned around from near disaster in 2013?  And, as it nears completion, what is the impact of Universal Credit?

To explore these questions and more, the IfG was delighted to bring together an expert panel featuring:

• Neil Couling, the Senior Responsible Owner for Universal Credit for a decade until March this year
• Tom Loosemore, Co-founder of Public Digital and Co-author of Nesta’s report on how to transform government services
• Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government
• Tom Waters, Associate Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies

The event was chaired by Nicholas Timmins, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government and author of the IfG’s 2016 report Universal Credit: From Disaster to Recovery?