Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to increase awareness of the option to request more frequent universal credit payments.
We will be running various pilots in jobcentres from Spring 2019 to actively explain and promote more frequent payments to claimants at the outset of their Universal Credit claim. The overall trial will last for four weeks, followed by a period of evaluation. This analysis will take place over a 3-month period to track the trial cohort to identify take up rates, effects on payment timeliness, effects on phone calls and reversion rates. These outcomes will be expected in the Summer. This evidence will then inform our approach to the delivery of more frequent payments going forward, in order to ensure that the claimants who need these arrangements receive them.