Caerphilly Council staff are facing increased pressure to deal with the roll-out of universal credit with hundreds of tenants submitting claims.
A total of 230 council tenants have applied since the full service commenced in the borough on September 5 – averaging six new claims per day.
Concerns have now been raised about how the council will cope with transferring the 8,000 households currently on ‘legacy’ benefits onto the new system that replaces them.
Claimants can only sign up for universal credit online, meaning council staff are often sent to their homes to help with the process or offer financial advice.
But the policy and resources scrutiny committee heard on Tuesday that the workforce is struggling to keep up with current demand.
A statement from Councillor Lisa Phipps, cabinet member for homes and place, said: “We continue to offer assistance in tenants’ homes with making and managing claims and advising tenants on budgeting.
“But this is resulting in a significant increase in the workload for both administration and frontline staff.”
In his autumn budget statement, Chancellor Philip Hammond said universal credit was “here to stay” with further investment.
He also announced that unemployed claimants will receive existing benefits two weeks after applying for universal credit – but this change will not come into effect until July 2020.
Universal credit was supposed to be up and running for all benefits claimants last year but is now not expected to be rolled out to everyone until December 2023.
Labour councillor Gary Johnston expressed concerns about the impact of the rollout on the council resources and for the Welsh Government to lobby the UK Government for further support.
Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle suggested that the Welsh Local Government Association should mount a campaign against the new system.
Caerphilly Council’s chief housing officer, Shaun Couzens, suggested that more staff could be trained to provide additional support but said the council was not able to “continuously add staff resources”.
“We have no funding coming our way at present in relation to universal credit and we’re doing all we can,” said Mr Couzens.
“Universal credit is currently focused on new benefits claimants but 80% of our tenants are currently in receipt of housing benefits.