The third and final part of this series follows the staff and claimants at Bolton Jobcentre. Universal Credit is designed to help people on short-term and zero-hour contracts – like 20-year-old Jenny, who has recently signed up to the new benefit. She has found herself a job but the fact her benefits are paid a month in arrears means she is struggling to work out how much she has to live off.

New Universal Credit claimant Paula gets £1,700 of advance payments to see her through the first five-week wait before her first Universal Credit payment but is stunned to realise that she will only have £532 a month to live off until she has paid the advances back.

And at the Department for Work and Pensions headquarters in London, the number of people moving on to Universal Credit from the old system is not as high as predicted. Director general Neil Couling and his team are concerned about whether they will need to delay the end-date to the rollout of Universal Credit. Show less