Duncan Smith now has to deliver on vision for welfare reform

Iain Duncan Smith's reappointment as work and pensions secretary this week signals the government's renewed commitment to universal credit, the troubled welfare reform that he has driven through in the face of scepticism even from some of his own Cabinet colleagues.

Five years after the prime minister spelt out the government's ambition to achieve "the most fundamental and radical changes to the welfare system since it began", only about 52,000 of 7m prospective claimants are receiving universal credit and concerns remain that the scheme may never overcome the difficulties that have set it years behind schedule.

The Conservatives' drive to curb welfare has been one of the party's most popular policies. David Cameron was quick to announce that the government would legislate this year to reduce the maximum amount of benefits a household can receive annually by £3,000 to £23,000 a year.

The welfare cap was one of several reforms undertaken in the last parliament which go far beyond universal credit. Another was the under-occupancy charge, nicknamed the "bedroom tax" by opponents, that obliges council and housing association tenants to pay an additional sum if they wish to live in a home larger than they are deemed to need.

Universal credit, however, is the flagship scheme, rolling six different tax credits or benefits into a single payment, to sharpen work incentives and ensure that people are always better off in a job than on welfare.

In an apparent sign of doubt over whether the programme delivers value for money, Treasury officials have indicated that the final sign-off for the scheme will come only towards the end of 2016. This would be well over five years after its launch.

Senior government figures insist this calibrated approval system is a sensible response to the problems suffered by big IT projects, such as tax credits, in recent years. George Osborne, the chancellor, is said to be losing no sleep over universal credit, confident that its new revised timetable will be met.

The Department for Work and Pensions said its plan was "on track", with universal credit already available in more than 200 jobcentres. When fully rolled out, it would make 3 million people better off "with a £7bn boost to the economy every year", it added.

Proponents argue that a principal strength of universal credit is that it adapts easily to claimants' changing circumstances, such as a period of unemployment or a marriage break-up.

However, as it is slowly extended beyond single unemployed people to couples and families, the experiences of some of those receiving it point to issues that need to be resolved if it is to be successfully implemented.

Steve Cullen, chief executive of the Citizens Advice Bureau in Warrington, a town in Cheshire that is among those leading the scheme's expansion, is already identifying what he sees as systemic flaws.

He summarises them as "unrealistic waits for the money - eight, ten or 12 weeks; problems of verification of documents, very, very poor communication with agencies like ours when we are trying to assist in getting [people] through the process. It is pushing people on low incomes into abject hardship very quickly," adds Mr Cullen.

Statistics released by the department tell a far more positive story, suggesting that for many the impact of universal credit has been highly beneficial.

Its research shows that, over a four-month period, claimants were 13 per cent more likely to have been in work than those on Jobseeker's Allowance and to be earning more money.

However, an array of issues crucial to the way the scheme will work remained unresolved, even as Mr Duncan Smith in February announced the "national rollout" of the scheme to jobcentres across the country.

These include how eligibility for free school meals is determined, now tax credits, which have acted as one of the passports to this benefit, are being subsumed into universal credit. The reform of council tax benefit, with councils setting their own eligibility criteria, has injected additional complexity into the benefit system just as universal credit was supposed to be removing it.

A final question is whether the structure of universal credit takes sufficient account of changes to the labour market that have become more apparent since it was conceived. Key to the savings the scheme is intended to deliver is a requirement that those working only a small number of hours must seek to raise them or face losing benefits.

But how this is to be achieved, particularly for those currently on zero-hours contracts, remains opaque and the Social Market Foundation think-tank has branded it "a leap in the dark".

In an interview with the Financial Times in March, Sir Amyas Morse, who heads the National Audit Office, which has conducted the only external inquiries into the scheme, said the risks had "gone down a lot" since the NAO had first reviewed the programme in 2013.

However, what would end up being implemented, he predicted, was "more modest than the original aspiration".

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