At last weeks full council meeting I was able to confirm that the new Joint Administration is writing to the Government to implore them not to scrap the £20 a week universal credit uplift. The governments proposals will see over £50m removed from the County economy for the following year, this is. clearly unacceptable and will impact on over 52000 County Durham residents. This will also impact the council with increases in workload to address the many and varied problems which this will cause.