Why I built it.

Universal Credit has an entire system behind it. Work coaches, decision makers, rules, legislation, guidance, procedures and years of accumulated experience.

The people who rely on Universal Credit don't necessarily have any of that knowledge.

You can sit down in front of a work coach who's spent years dealing with appointments, commitments, work searches, payments, sanctions and complicated claimant situations. They understand how the system operates because they work within it every day.

But you might be facing that particular situation for the first time.

You know your own circumstances. You know what happened. But you might not know which rules apply, whether what you've been told is correct, what information matters, which questions you should be asking, or whether there's a stronger way to explain your position.

And when your income, commitments or circumstances are involved, that difference in knowledge can matter enormously.

I've experienced that side of Universal Credit myself. I've seen how easily misunderstandings develop, how questions can go unanswered and how difficult it can be to make sense of something when you don't have the same understanding of the system as the person you're dealing with.

I didn't want to build another chatbot that simply gives generic answers or rewrites journal messages.

I wanted to put serious Universal Credit knowledge and reasoning power directly into the claimant's hands.

Something that can listen to your situation, understand the wider context, connect what happened before with what's happening now, recognise what you might have missed, challenge questionable explanations and help you work out what actually matters.

Something that doesn't simply agree with you, either. If you've misunderstood something, it should help you recognise that. If there's a stronger, supportable argument, it should help you develop it. If you've made a mistake, it should still help you understand your position and explain yourself properly.

And when you need to respond through your Universal Credit journal, it should help you put your side across clearly, intelligently and confidently, drawing on relevant guidance, rules and law where appropriate.

That's why I built UC Journal Companion.

The people working within Universal Credit have the experience of the system behind them.

I believe the people relying on it deserve intelligence on their side, too.