Neil Couling

The £7.5bn savings across the public sector include almost £4bn generated by HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, and £2bn by DWP civilserviceworld.com/professions/ar…

Good work by our DWP fraud teams dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

Latest #UniversalCredit stats. Some expansion in available information. Most notably how much of the growth in caseload derives from moving legacy cases over to UC from other benefits.

In some respects, Universal Credit has worked as intended. The system has successfuly reduced very high marginal effective tax rates and participation tax rates ⤵️

Latest #UniversalCredit statistics

@Salientwork Sad news indeed - a great non exec indeed

So sad to hear of the passing of the wonderful Sarah Anderson. A great non-exec in the world of employability support in both Jobcentreplus and the Employment Service. We could do with more of her like. ⁦@NeilCouling⁩ theguardian.com/society/2026/j…

The #UniversalCredit stats today. Now nearly 800k former ESA claimants on UC. Nearly done.

@rearend52 DM me some cases. We are clearing them as part of the plan, but I don’t mind checking all is in hand

Completing the move to Universal Credit: Completing the move for households previously on Employment and Support Allowance - GOV.UK gov.uk/government/pub…

On the fifteenth anniversary of the publication of the #UniversalCredit White Paper the latest stats on the final phase of its implementation. Nearly there Move to Universal Credit, July 2022 to end September 2025 - GOV.UK gov.uk/government/sta…

@rearend52 There’s no “huge backlog” but we are working through cases who have asked whether they qualify for SDP so any transition includes that in calculations at the point of a move. Will all be done in ti,e for closing ESA in March

The Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 35) (Abolition of Benefits) Order 2025 - legislation that closes Income Support and Jobseeker’s Allowance from April 2026 as part of the move to complete the implementation of #UniversalCredit. legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/1148…

@paulapeters2 @johnpringdns @1kilroywashere @BadPutty @InclusionLondon Doesn’t impact. Just prevents a switch between different types of ESA from the end of November. Some claimants have the same entitlement to contributory ESA and income-related so can switch. This commencement order prevents that so that benefits aren’t inadvertently interrupted.

@NeilCouling @johnpringdns @1kilroywashere @BadPutty @InclusionLondon What about claimants just on CB Legacy ESA Mr Couling who could never get IB ESA

#Budget2025 I saw on RightsNet that all CB ESA legacy claims will be under a new commencement order from 1/12/25 @NeilCouling can you explain exactly what this means for CB ESA please @johnpringdns @johnpringdns @1kilroywashere @BadPutty @InclusionLondon

@paulapeters2 @johnpringdns @1kilroywashere @BadPutty @InclusionLondon And that wouldn’t leave enough time to end that claim and get folk across to UC

@paulapeters2 @johnpringdns @1kilroywashere @BadPutty @InclusionLondon This stops people on New Style (CB) ESA reverting back to income-related ESA after November. Obviously they can make a claim for UC from then. All part of closing down income related ESA by end of March 2026 as planned. Otherwise people might try to revert days before ESA closes

If you get a text about the "Winter Fuel Payment" or the "Winter Fuel Allowance", it is a scam Winter Fuel Payments are automatic, you do not need to do anything Report suspicious texts at stopthinkfraud.campaign.gov.uk

@gmorgan_ferret Well it took a year to prepare, on a much smaller caseload. I’m glad we all now have happy memories, I do remember lots of challenges about TP calculations and I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights puzzling about how to handle the Housing Benefit Supplement cases crossover

@NeilCouling And did it overnight without problems. We did the same with our benefits calculators.

Then we converted the entire Supplementary Benefits caseload by hand, calculating Transitional protection on paper sheets with calculators. We arranged for some computer support for the move to #UniversalCredit. I don’t think anyone missed doing manual calculations!

I was in Belfast yesterday for the closure of DfC’s UC Programme (and what a great job colleagues there have done implementing UC). Sadly Sammy the seagull wasn’t there but I did meet a handful of people, like me, who were around for the implementation of IS on 11 April 1988.