Why we broke our own publishing rules with the new Universal Credit advice

We help people solve problems with online advice they can act on. When it comes to benefits, people want answers to things like whether they’re eligible and how they can appeal decisions.

They don’t usually look for general benefit information. So we have a rule not to publish content like this. For example, you won’t see a page on the site titled ‘What is Personal Independence Payment?’

Follow the evidence

But are there circumstances when the normal rules don’t apply? Well, sort of. To paraphrase Picasso, you have to know the rules before you can break them. And one area where we’ve taken an evidenced-based decision to break our own rules on not publishing general information is Universal Credit.

They key thing here is evidence — if what people are looking for suggests taking a different approach, there’s no reason not to.

And in this case, we quickly found that whether someone is thinking of applying for benefits for the first time or claiming benefits already, there’s a genuine user need for explaining what Universal Credit is.

Why Universal Credit is different

Universal Credit combines 6 existing benefits into one and is being rolled out across the UK in stages. Whether you should claim it instead of other benefits depends on where you live and your personal circumstances. And while one day in the future, everyone who gets means-tested benefits will get Universal Credit, at the moment, the old system and Universal Credit exist side by side.

“Most clients don’t know what Universal Credit is” — Citizens Advice Southwark

Universal Credit confuses people. And this is what came out in our research — both from talking to Citizens Advice advisers on the ground and during testing with the public.

One of the top Universal Credit related questions typed into Google is simply ‘What is Universal Credit?’.

Easing clients’ worries — a genuine user need

Helping people understand what Universal Credit is and how it works has as much to do with alleviating anxiety as it has to do with helping people solve more concrete problems.

The introduction of Universal Credit is a change to a benefit system that the public has lived with for years. By explaining what it is, we can answer the need to know what will happen and what people need to do as it rolls out. For many people who already get means-tested benefits, the reassuringly simple answer is nothing.

The content

Armed with evidence of what we know people are looking for, we felt confident designing new content that differs from our usual model. So while much of our other benefits advice is divided into chunks which get straight to the point and help users solve specific problems like this…

…our Universal Credit content also includes a page called ‘What Universal Credit is’. We also added more tactical advice like how to appeal a decision to make sure we’re covering users’ needs at all points of the Universal Credit journey.

Explaining how Universal Credit works forewarns the public of differences between it and the benefits it’s replacing — for example the fact it’s paid monthly rather than weekly or fortnightly. This can translate into actions like planning a monthly budget or applying for an alternative payment arrangement if people are struggling.

Future improvements

As Universal Credit rolls out across more of the country and more people claim it, our user needs will change. So a big part of updating the content will be reviewing these — there’ll come a time when we won’t need our explanatory page.

But for now, while we still have users coming to our website by asking the question ‘what is Universal Credit?’, we’re happy to rip up the rulebook — or at least one of its pages!