Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the effect of the reduction in funding for Lincoln’s Citizens Advice on the provision of advice to claimants of Universal Credit in Lincoln.

The Department does not directly fund Lincoln’s Citizens Advice to provide Universal Support.

For 2017/18, we estimated the City of Lincoln Council’s funding to help them provide Universal Support to Universal Credit claimants to be £4,107, and for 2018/19 we are increasing this funding to £11,131 to reflect that the City of Lincoln went live with Universal Credit full service on 7 March 2018.

The City of Lincoln Council has full discretion as to whether they provide this Universal Support themselves or contract out to another organisation, such as Citizens Advice.

Any such sub-contraction is a matter between the council and the sub-contractor.