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My name is Phil Eckersley and I'm the managing director of Home Instead Senior Care in Wigan.
The first time I found out about Universal Credit was actually at a jobfair that we did
where we were searching for potential care givers, which in Wigan particularly, a lot
of people do want to work in the care sector and it's always been an issue in the past.
I believe that Universal Credit will really benefit me as an employer and our organisation
generally. It makes the whole recruitment process so much easier, with the Jobmatch
system, and will enable us to be more responsive to the needs of our clients when we come to
support them in their own homes as well.
As well as benefiting us as a business, I do believe that Universal Credit will benefit
the community as a whole. We can bring more people into work, give more people employment
opportunities, and give more people the potential to develop themselves.
Under the previous system we had a reluctance, I suppose, to take on people when we probably
did need them and this is because of the costs that are required to put someone through an
induction and training programme and to support them through the initial stages of their employment
and their ongoing development. So, being able to have a system where people can work 5,
10, 15 hours a week and not be penalised for that would be fantastic.
People will have so much more flexibility to work around their own family lives; if
they have young children, they can work as many hours as they want, they can have more
than one job, and hopefully they will come off the Universal Credit in time because we'll
be able to invest the resources confident in the fact that they won't need to give up
work because they're worse off. It will also encourage people to break through the bracket
of benefits and start living a life where they don't need to receive benefits, and for
me and for the people who work for us it will be a great thing.