A major charity has been accused of abandoning its principles after it agreed to provide advice to people claiming the new benefit Universal Credit.
Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) is to benefit from a share of a £39m deal with the UK Government under which advice bureaux around the UK will provide an support service to those claiming UC.
But the charity was accused of hypocrisy over the move - as it has been strongly critical of the controversial benefit, currently being rolled out across Scotland.
Last year its chair in Scotland, Rory Mair, said the combined benefit had "major delivery and design flaws which risk hurting families instead of helping them".
The charity's agreement to work with the Department for Work and Pensions to deliver an advice service known as Universal Support has provoked criticism from its own volunteers and from other welfare advisors.
Rob McDowall, chairman of Welfare Scotland which campaigns for a more compassionate social security system, said Universal Credit remained seriously flawed and he could not see how CAS could work to support people through the system.
McDowall said: “I cannot understand how Citizens Advice can support a partnership deal with the DWP to assist them deliver a seriously flawed social security programme such as Universal Credit."
“We have thousands of stories of real people being cruelly affected by this programme and I am confident that Citizens Advice will have a similar experience of Universal Credit."
Such problems have emerged even though the system isn't fully rolled out yet, he added.
“The reality is the system isn’t fit for purpose. This partnership is more about the DWP offloading the responsibility of the department to support those in need to access the benefits they are entitled to, and less about the real effort to better understand and reform the system.”
Universal Credit, which combines a number of historic benefits into one payment, has been criticised for making claimants wait up to six weeks to receive any help, for the widespread use of financial sanctions against claimants and for leaving many families worse off.
Alan McIntosh, an independent blogger on debt said Citizen Advice and Citizen Advice Scotland had misjudged the issue, and allowed themselves to be used as a "kevlar vest" by work and pensions minister Ester McVey.
"They have previously criticised the roll out of Universal Credit and called it disastrous. It now appears they are going into a partnership with the DWP to assist in that roll out. This is without new money being made available or any regulatory reform taking place to mitigate the effects," he said.
"The reality is there is little more that Citizen Advice can do but advise claimant how to seek advances (which gets people into debt), advise people how to live on poverty levels of benefits or refer them to food banks."
"The conclusion that will be drawn by many is that Citizen Advice have abandoned their principle of independence and have agreed to this partnership, ignoring the experience of their own bureaux, their front line advisers and their service users, for £39 million.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group UK, said the deal would be welcome if it helped UC claimants, but called for the rolling out of the benefit to be halted until the many "well documented" problems with it could be fixed. She said: “Unless the roll-out of Universal Credit is paused, the new benefit will continue to roll out poverty to people’s doors."
However Derek Mitchell, chief executive of CAS, said volunteers in the many local Citizen's Advice Bureaux were already providing support to those struggling with the new system. CAS, is not going to "help" the DWP to roll out UC, he said. Rather, with the benefit already being rolled out, adivisors would be giving the same support hey always had, he said.
"The Citizens Advice network in Scotland has seen first-hand how much hardship Universal Credit has caused to people claiming it in Scotland, and we still firmly believe that all issues causing that hardship must be addressed," he explained.
"Our position on problems with Universal Credit has not changed, and nor has our impartiality. We will continue to urge the UK government to fix flaws in the Universal Credit system.”
A CAS insider insisted the deal was not a capitulation and did not involve the organisation compromising its principles. "We are focused on actually helping people who need help today. If the Government give us a bit more money to help us do that, we'll take it." he said.
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