Benefit Apps
An app is being developed in order to enable households applying for the new benefit, Universal Credit, to do so online. The minister for welfare reform Lord Freud has said that 80% of claimants, -more than 6 million households, will claim universal credit online by 2017.
The aim is to have half of all claimants online by 2013-14, instead of less than 20% at present.
The new plans represent a big shift away from paper-based claims towards a form of digital welfare.
“This is the most radical redesign of the welfare system since its creation and we are taking an equally radical approach to the design and build of technology to deliver it,” Freud said.
Freud admitted:
“It is one thing to have policy, but delivery is equally important. The current welfare system is broken.”
Universal credit will change the current system by integrating both in-work tax credits and out-of-work benefits.
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Amanda Frewin
Research & Project Support
Use of Apps for benefit claimants?