CONTROVERSIAL changes to benefits payments have been branded the UK Government's "biggest white elephant" after it emerged a planned national rollout of the Universal Credit scheme will involve only Inverness and five other areas.
The Highland capital will be among only a handful of new places across Britain to run Universal Credit, in which six different benefits and tax credits are rolled into one simplified payment.
It is already running in two pilot areas with a further two starting later this month.
The rollout will extend this to Hammersmith in London, Rugby, Harrogate, Bath and Shotton in North Wales.
Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, defended the gradual and cautious launch, saying: "While we press ahead with delivery, we are also ensuring we have the best long-term approach in place for this transformative benefit.
"I'm determined to get this right and will not follow the old ways of governing; launching with a big bang and having to clear up the mess afterwards. I will bring in this radical reform safely and I'm committed to doing it by 2017 and to budget."
However, Labour said the limited number of Jobcentres offering the new benefit from October showed the scheme would dramatically miss its original timetable.
"Today, we have final confirmation the welfare revolution we were promised has collapsed," said Liam Byrne, Mr Duncan Smith's Labour Shadow.
"Two weeks ago, we learned the Work Programme was a total failure, now we learn Universal Credit has become the biggest white elephant in Whitehall."
He added: "David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith have spent £420 million of taxpayers' money to deliver Universal Credit in the grand total of just 10 Jobcentres; that's less than 1.5% of the nation's Jobcentres. Iain Duncan Smith must now ask himself if he is fit for purpose."
As well as expanding the scheme to six new areas, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said Jobcentre staff across the country would be trained in the claimant commitment, setting out the responsibilities of individuals receiving the new benefit. Some 6000 new computers would be installed so people could access online services, it added.
The announcement comes as a report today warned families with children risk ending up worse off by working full-time than if they cut back their hours under the Coalition's welfare reforms.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social policy think-tank, said families with children would hit a "ceiling" where, despite working more, their disposable income after childcare costs would fail to increase, or even fall in some cases, as their benefits were steeply withdrawn.
It commissioned the report to probe whether Universal Credit would achieve its goal of making work pay.
Donald Hirsch, its author, said the rewards for working extra hours under Universal Credit could be tiny.
He said: "Parents hit a ceiling where a lid is placed on the aspiration to work more hours for an adequate income because the return is negligible."
In response, a DWP spokesman said: "Universal Credit will give very clear incentives for people to move into work and to work more with claimants due to increase their working hours by one to 2.5 hours a week.
"The new benefit will also reduce childcare costs for hardworking families. We are investing £200m on top of the nearly £2bn already spent from now, so that around 100,000 more families will benefit from childcare support for the first time."
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