JUST £360 of the £50,000 set aside by the city council to help people affected by the rollout of Universal Credit has been spent.

Susan Brown, the council’s new leader, said the authority had ‘simply plucked a figure out of the air’ for the fund because it was so worried about benefit changes in the city in October.

Ms Brown said all of the £50,000 had not been required because the Government ‘actually listened to a lot of the lobbing that was made’ to change the way Universal Credit would be paid to benefit claimants.

Both Oxford’s MPs, Layla Moran and Anneliese Dodds, and Citizens Advice Oxford had urged a halt to the change in Universal Credit before it was introduced to new claimants on October 18.

The system rolled a number of existing benefits into one payment but was criticised after some claimants faced long delays between submitting a claim and receiving their first payment.

Ms Brown added at a meeting on Monday: “I’m very glad to say that the Government actually listened to a lot of the lobbying that was made, not just by this council but local MPs, and MPs up and down the country.

“As a result of that at the point of Universal Credit being rolled out across the city, a lot of the concerns we had about that rollout were then addressed by the Government.

"[The Government] ended the period of having a week that was effectively not paid for; they increased the loan people were able to get by the full among as opposed to half the amount of credit; and I think it’s probably that some of those changes have actually helped people who would have been beneficiaries of our scheme.”

But she said people were still suffering as a result of the Government’s long-standing benefit changes in Oxford, with some residents still reliant on foodbanks.

Last June, Oxford University researchers said 80 per cent of people referred to foodbanks had gone days without eating. And Ms Brown added: “The fact is that people in this city are struggling so much because of the Government’s welfare reforms.

“The real pressure we need to put on here is the Government to say: you really need to look at your welfare programme.”

A DWP spokeswoman said: “Universal Credit lies at the heart of our reforms to transform the welfare system, so it supports those who can work, cares for those who can’t, while being fair to the taxpayer.

"Universal Credit provides additional, tailored support to help people move into work and stop claiming benefits altogether.

“With Universal Credit, people are moving into work faster and staying in work longer.”