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A Citizen’s Income would require no case work

For every administrative saving, a civil servant is made redundant (or, at least, not recruited), and I would not wish redundancy on civil servants; but it does seem a waste of public money, and of civil servants’ time, to investigate who is cohabiting with whom, and who is being paid by whom, and a waste of everybody’s time to calculate small changes in benefits levels when claimants declare casual earnings.

The means-tested system, which includes in-work means-tested benefits, is now creaking in the UK and presumably elsewhere as well. The UK’s system will continue to creak if Universal Credit really is rolled out to everyone on means-tested benefits, and it will creak even more now that Council Tax Support (a rebate on a local property tax) is calculated locally in relation to local rules. None of these systems is designed for a flexible labour market and a mobile society. If the nettle is not grasped soon then the system will make more and more mistakes, and will become more and more costly to run, and might eventually seize up, as Housing Benefit did in the mid-1980s.

New computers able to handle vast amounts of information at a speed thousands of times that of today’s large computers are now being researched. These will make cheap administration of tax and benefits possible. But the case-by-case approach to benefits (including Universal Credit) will prevent effective computerisation. The casework approach means civil servants taking numerous decisions every time the smallest circumstance changes, and then transferring data to the computer. (This will still be true of Universal Credit, because automatic income reporting will only apply to employments for which Pay As You Earn tax is deducted.)

Only with a new start – only with a Citizen’s Income – will the social security system reap the benefits of the next generation of computers. The UK’s Child Benefit is already well computerised and is extremely cheap to administer (the Government has not means-tested it, contrary to popular belief) and there is no reason why a system to serve every citizen should not be like Child Benefit.

A Citizen’s Income might still require a means-tested scheme to supplement it, but because many people currently on means-tested benefits would supplement their Citizen’s Income with earnings rather than with means-tested benefits, there would be few people claiming means-tested benefits, and the casework approach would then be both appropriate and manageable, which it is not with the number of people relying on it today.

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About the Book

101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income offers a short, accessible introduction to the debate on a Citizen’s Income, showing how a universal, unconditional income for every citizen would solve problems facing the UK’s benefits system, tackle poverty, and improve social cohesion and economic efficiency. For anyone new to the subject, or who wants to introduce friends, colleagues or relatives to the idea, 101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income is the book to open up debate around the topic. Drawing on arguments detailed in Money for everyone (Policy Press, 2013), it offers a convincing case for a Citizen’s Income and a much needed resource for all interested in the future of welfare in the UK.