Struggling Dad Gets 1p Universal Credit Payment

A Dad who was paid just 1p in benefits over a 10-week period after switching to the new Universal Credit system has lost his job after he was unable to pay the travel costs.

Alastair Campbell reduced his working hours from full-time to part-time in November last year to care for his young son.

But the move proved disastrous after he was put on the Universal Credit system and battled to get any help.

In the week before Christmas, 10 weeks after he applied for the benefits, he received the 1p payment into his bank account.

It was March before he received the benefits he needed, by which time he had run up debts and needed to pay back advances given to him.

Now in a devastating blow, Alastair, 41, who worked as a porter for NHS Lothian, has been paid off, after his lack of funds left him racking up too many absences.

He said: “I blame Universal Credit. I was messed around from the start and had no money for months.

“Faced with the choice of feeding my son or travelling to work, I just couldn’t do both a lot of the time.

“I was working part-time, receiving £100 a week and paying £20 to travel to work with no benefits. It made me ill, sometimes I was too unwell to even try and go to work, the stress was unbearable.”

Last week, Alistair was told by phone he was being paid off, while he was working a shift at the Western General Hospital, in Edinburgh.

“He said: “I was moved to the Western as a last chance and I knew that, but in the end they said there were too many absences. I feel badly let down. I worked for the NHS for nine years; if I was a female single parent, this would not have happened, there would have been more support.”

Alastair and his nine-year-old son live in Musselburgh but the dad fell into rent arrears last year after a relationship breakdown and mental health issues.

He applied for the new Universal Credit (UC) from the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and reduced his working hours so he could look after his son, but after six weeks of attending meetings and filling in forms, he found all his money had been given to East Lothian Council to pay his backdated rent.

To show he had received an initial payment, the DWP put 1p into his bank on the day his first payment was due, before leaving him for a full month with no further payments.

Alastair said: “They told me they had paid around £170 to East Lothian Council for rent arrears but I was due nothing else. It seems under the new system they can put child tax credit money towards rent arrears instead of just housing benefits.

“It is a crazy system, they want you to find work but provide you with no real support to keep it. The day after I lost my job the job centre called me to arrange a ‘work-focused’ meeting –I hung up in disgust.”

East Lothian became the first council area in Scotland to take part in the introduction of the new credit, which replaces benefits with one single payment.

George Kerevan, East Lothian MP, has been working with Mr Campbell and others affected by UC.

He said: “This is a sad case. Mr Campbell is a single parent, and was trying to reconcile child care with work. It is the unpredictability of benefit payments which causes people like Mr Campbell terrible distress, and sometimes results in them losing their jobs.

“My caseworkers often have calls from constituents frightened that they will have no money for the weekend. This is not the way to treat people, but the Government doesn’t care.”

Image: George Kerevan, East Lothian MP in happier times.