Automating Universal Credit

Automating Universal Credit

Outputs

Peer-reviewed papers

H. Bennett, M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2024) Universal Credit: administrative burdens of automated welfare. Journal of Social Policy, pp. 1–19. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000175.
 
L. Podoletz. and M. Currie (2024) Automating universal credit: A case of temporal governance. First Monday, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i2.13580.
 
M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2023) Studying Lived Experience and Automated Systems: The Case of Universal Credit. 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). Oct. 29 – 31. London, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.813 [access a copy here.]
 
M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2023) Emotions and Dynamic Assemblages: A Study of Automated Social Security Using Qualitative Longitudinal Research. In 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’23), June 12–15, 2023, Chicago, IL, USA. 11 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3593013.3594066 [open access version here].

 

Reports

Design Problems of Universal Credit & Working Single Mothers (co-authored with One Parent Family Scotland) (2025) 

Data Benefits: A study on social security data sharing in Scotland (as part of the Data Benefits project)(2024)

Automating Universal Credit Roundtable Summary Report (2023)

Data Sharing in Social Security Systems (2023)

Childcare & Universal Credit (2023)

Report based on our response to the Work and Pensions Committee on Benefits levels in the UK (2023)

Confused about Universal Credit? A case for greater onboarding support for new claimants (2023)

Report for DWP on Design Prompts for User Feedback on Universal Credit (2022)

Scottish Choices Report (co-authored with the Navigating Digital Welfare project) (2022)

 

FOI request

The DWP's data on Real Time Information disputes by UC claimants in 2022 (received 21 March 2023)

The DWP's data on percentage of employed single parent households on UC and update to this request (received 1 July 2024)

The DWP's data on percentage of employed couples and single without children households (received 1 July 2024)

 

Conferences and events

M. Currie (2024) at the Universal Credit Analysis Division L & D Seminar. 16 January. Online. 

M. Currie (2023) at the Automating Universal Credit Roundtable. 3 November. Edinburgh, UK.

M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2023) at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). London, UK.

M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2023) at Data Justice Conference 2023. Cardiff, UK.

M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2023) at ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency 2023 (FAccT'23). Chicago, USA.

M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2023) at Algorithms for Her? 2. Sheffield, UK.

M. Currie and L. Podoletz (2022) at Datafied Welfare States: ECREA pre-conference. Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

Press

A. Walton (2024) DWP's 'automation' of universal credit discriminates against single mums, researchers say. The Big Issue. 10 July.

R. Booth (2023) Scrap plans to scan accounts of benefit claimants or risk new scandal, MPs told. The Guardian. The Guardian. 4 March. 

I. McRae (2023) DWP using AI to assess benefit and universal credit claims poses ‘significant risk’, experts warn. The Big Issue. 11 December.

R. Booth (2023) Automated UK welfare system needs more human contact, ministers warned. The Guardian. 22 May.

A. Dent (2022) Disabled Benefits Claimants Are Being Unfairly Investigated. Huck Magazine. 16 March.