Hearing more and more from laid off people telling me they can’t complete their Universal Credit application because the phone lines are jammed. A couple of applicants have told me they’ve been trying on and off for a week and had no luck.
For instance, I’ve spoken to one Universal Credit applicant who recently lost all their work in the hospitality sector, who is approximately *40,000th* in the queue and has only moved up 2000 places in the last 24 hours.
Clearly when you’ve lost your job and income time is of the essence and this is a real problem.
To be clear, this wait is for the identity verification bit of the system.
I’ve spoken to someone else just now who is 112,000th in the queue for identity verification for universal credit. They have to have it done by March 30th and concerned it won’t be processed in time.
