Universal Credit Review
- Mar 28
- 2 min read
Susan Gray, Department for Work and Pensions shares information on how you can take part in the Universal Credit Review which the DWP is currently undertaking.
Universal Credit (UC) Review
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been regularly engaging with stakeholders and is committed to continuing to do so on Universal Credit. DWP recognise the important role of people with a lived experience of receiving UC in the review process.
The review has already begun with the announcement of the UC Fair Repayment Rate, giving 1.2 million households an average of £420 per year. DWP are continuing to review the benefit to ensure it makes work pay and reduces poverty. DWP have already announced dedicated strands of activity, like the UK Child Poverty Taskforce, as well as this work to take stock of the core structures and policies of Universal Credit.
As a stakeholder, DWP would like to invite you to set out any concerns you may have around UC and ideas for where it could improve.
The focus of the UC Review will be on the structure and policy design of UC, building in research and analysis, customer experience and how the policy works in practice to understand the scope for improvement.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability is leading on the review, which we expect will take place over the course of the rest of the year. There will be no terms of reference, and we don’t expect to produce a final report but plan to regularly update the UK Parliament and the public when progress is made throughout the review period.
The UC review process will focus on how UC can best contribute to DWP objectives in three themes:
Tackling poverty and helping people manage their money including the key parts of UCs core design that support customers with their finances. Areas we’ll look at under this theme include the initial assessment period (5 week wait), alternative payment arrangements and fluctuating earnings (including those paid 4-weeky).
Making work pay and improving work incentives. The introduction of UC aimed to simplify work incentives and ensure work always pays. The review will examine how financial incentives to work, and progress can be optimised to increase labour market participation and drive growth. This theme will include passported benefits eligibility and potential cliff edges, as well as self-employment.
Maximising UCs potential and its impact on customers. Where we’ll identify opportunities and making UC fit for the future. The review will engage broadly on untapped opportunities, including how we can use UC data to improve UC for customers. This will include work looking at UCs objectives and core purpose, take up of UC and using UC to increase take-up of passported benefits and upfront childcare costs.
DWP want as much as possible for people and organisations to be able to feed in both their expertise, experiences, and research on specific areas but also to be able to highlight areas that DWP should focus on as part of the review.
You can submit your views and ideas by email to ucpolicy.2025@dwp.gov.uk
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