Universal Credit

(asked on 15th May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 13 May to Question 249845, what information her Department holds on the demographics of universal credit claimants who have been unable to repay their advance within 12 months.


Answered by
Alok Sharma Portrait
Alok Sharma
COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
This question was answered on 20th May 2019

The table below shows the volumes of customers who have had an advance of their Universal Credit award on the system for a year or more as of 13 May 2019, broken down by age, gender and region. All figures are rounded to the nearest 500.

Prior to taking a new claim advance, the claimant agrees the number of monthly instalments in which they will repay it, up to a maximum of 12. For a number of reasons, their 12 monthly instalments may not necessarily run consecutively. Claimants do not incur a penalty if it takes them more than a calendar 12-month timescale to replay their advance.

Age of Claimant

Female

Female

Male

Male

Total

England & Wales

Scotland

England & Wales

Scotland

Under 20

2,000

500

2,000

500

5,000

20-29

35,000

4,500

53,000

8,000

100,500

30-39

24,000

2,500

43,500

6,000

76,000

40-49

15,500

2,000

24,000

3,500

45,000

50-59

12,000

1,500

16,000

2,000

31,500

60+

2,500

500

3,500

500

7,000

Total

90,500

11,000

142,000

21,000

264,500

Note:

This data has been sourced from internal management information and has not been quality assured to the usual standards for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other similar data subsequently released by the Department.

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