Community Advice Fermanagh (CAF) has cautioned that there is a “significant lack of understanding” in the new Universal Credit scheme.

Samantha Gallagher, assistant manager and Welfare Rights Specialist with CAF was commenting ahead of the phased changes that will come into affect from Monday (October 16).

“The way this is going to work is anybody who is on legacy benefits will in due course be invited to move on to this new system, Universal Credit.

“Tax credits are an annually assessed benefit which has worked well for self-employed people in particular, of which there are many in Fermanagh and this new benefit does not facilitate annual assessment.”

Samantha explained that many self-employed people will be affected as the new system calls for monthly assessments as opposed to annually.

A pilot was run by the Department for Communities (DfC) in the Enniskillen Jobs and Benefits Office (JBO) area and of the 250 people sent mitigation notices, 184 took them up as part of the pilot but 25 per cent of those contacted did not uptake the move between tax credits and Universal Credit.

Samantha said that the found that some did not take it up due to a change in circumstances led to some not uptaking the mitigation notices while the team at Community Advice Fermanagh found that their clients had difficulty with the system.

Samantha said it has “become too much” for some who must upload their income and expenditure every month in order to receive the benefit.

“Normally what they do is they would keep their income and expenditure, in whatever way they wish, a lot do it in a shoebox and go to the accountant in March or February time.

“But now you’re expected to run this yourself with no support and you’re expecting to run in monthly.

“There’s a lot a lot of self-employed people who are saying it’s not worth the hassle.”

One issue is also that some of the language surrounding the benefit has changed to be “more technical”.

“It is now a digital benefit, so computer literacy could be key to claimants.”

She added: “The group we are most concerned about from our statistics in Fermanagh tend to be male, over the age of 55 and self-employed in either trade or farming as they tend not to have the digital skills required to manage a UC claim.”

Referencing a case study from this pilot project and the difficulties it might cause for working families, Samantha said: “We recently assisted a couple who were both self-employed, one was a plumber and the other a registered childminder.

“They were both digitally literate but struggled with accounting. To best assist them, Enniskillen JBO commendably asked them to come in once per month to lodge their books and go through them together.

“While this was helpful, it meant that both self-employed claimants were taking time off work every month to lodge their accounts. For the registered childminder, this also meant that her service users had to take time off work every month.”

She said this “was operationally completely unsustainable”.

“Despite ongoing eligibility for UC, this family have taken the difficult decision to come off the benefit as a supplement to their income. It has left them struggling, rationing the basics and reducing their meals.”

Raising concern that this will affect several people in Fermanagh, at a disproportionate rate to the rest of Northern Ireland, Samantha concluded by saying: “In February 2023, We had 3,200 families in from Fermanagh on tax credits, which is 2.7 per cent of the population of the county.”

She said the figure shows that Fermanagh is now “one of the highest per head in the country who rely on a benefit”. “So if you were to look at other areas of Northern Ireland, the percentage of our population on tax credits is higher here.”