I agree. The UK has a serious problem with admin costs for these programs: UC rollout cost something like £12bn, which was a double digit fraction of the amount

I agree. The UK has a serious problem with admin costs for these programs: UC rollout cost something like £12bn, which was a double digit fraction of the amount paid. The Tories also had an obsession with "work coaches", these contracts cost an absolute bomb, and had no effect on unemployment going to 3% whatsoever (the issue in the early 2010s was jobs not being there). But my counter-point would be that part of the problem has been that definition of "need" and the quantum of that "need" has changed. The Tories assumed that everyone was on the take (and to be clear, Labour did this too around 2002-2004, they managed to reduce disability spending by 20% by just removing people from the benefit and telling them they weren't disabled anymore...even Duncan-Smith wasn't this thick) which meant they invested very heavily in pointless things. It is actually fairly easy to determine whether someone needs money or not...look at their income, look at their savings...it actually isn't hard. My concern is that the universal benefits brought in by Blair precipitated a situation where we have massive subsidies for the middle class whilst the govt is trying to take money from everyone who actually needs it (how can we spend more, we spend so much on in-work benefits). This is basically what happened in the pandemic. Maybe the solution to bad admin is good admin (the system that the DWP has with disability is patently ludicrous, they ignore GPs, they hire doctors who can't get work anywhere else, they rely on "examinations" by non-doctors, I had a relative with a chronic neuro issue...she had her benefits removed once, under Labour, by a non-doctor and the re-assessment was done by a physio...tbf, the Tories pulled back once they realised what was happening with early assessments, they never went as far as Labour...but it is an insane system).