A young mum of two small children recently got in touch with me following an article I had written on Universal Credit.
She shared an email she was sent by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) at 4.49am on a Sunday morning, which woke her up and alerted her to a notification on her online account.
So nervous was she that she got out of bed and immediately logged on to her account – only to be informed that her payment would be delayed.
Given that DWP advisers are not available on a Sunday, she had to wait until after the school run on the Monday to speak to someone about it.
It turned out to be an administrative error.
She told me she was unable to get back to sleep that Sunday morning, she was tired all day trying to care for her children and it ruined the rest of her weekend.
She was worried sick about what she had done wrong when, in fact, she had done nothing wrong.
Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, was criticised for stating that Universal Credit was “fast falling into Universal Discredit” but I cannot think of another reform to welfare which has been the architect of so much human misery.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.