In his final report to the UN, Philip Alston, the former Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and...
Benefits
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26/06/2013
New attack by Chancellor on unemployed people
Newly unemployed people will be forced to wait seven days, instead of three days currently, before being able to claim benefits. The announcement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of a statement on public spending plans for 2015-16. He said the move was designed to be 'helpful' to unemployed people, who would otherwise be distracted by the need to look for a new job.
Category: Reports -
25/06/2013
The forgotten poor: refugees and asylum seekers
In all the talk of tackling child poverty, one group has been largely ignored, children of refugees and asylum seekers. Stephen Crossley reports on poverty amongst this 'minority within a minority' and the role local agencies should play.
Category: Articles -
06/06/2013
Miliband sets out benefits strategy
Labour's plans for reforming the social security system – and controlling the benefits bill – have been set out by the party's leader, Ed Miliband MP. Under a 'one nation plan for social security reform', he said a Labour government would copy the coalition's policy of capping the 'structural' benefits budget during its first three years in office. The benefits system could not be exempt, he argued, from the budget discipline needed in all areas as a result of the economic situation Labour would inherit.
Category: Reports -
30/05/2013
IDS to be called to account for DWP use of statistics
Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is to be called in front of the Work and Pensions Select Committee in June over the misuse by the department of government statistics. This follows the rebuke from the official statistics watchdog for claiming that the benefits cap is pushing people to find paid work.
The select committee’s decision to ‘examine the way the DWP releases benefit statistics to the media’ follows a petition to the committee, signed by 96,666 people, calling for the committee to ‘hold IDS to account for his use of statistics on welfare’. Jayne Linney, who set up the petition on Change.org commented: ‘By starting this petition we’ve shown that everyone has the tools to call politicians out if they try to make things up. They can’t get away with spinning statistics any longer.
Category: News stories -
29/05/2013
Tory claims on disability criticised by watchdog
The Conservative Party chairman, Grant Shapps MP, has been criticised by the official statistics watchdog for making misleading statements on incapacity benefit claims. Shapps had said in March 2013 that: '878,300 people claiming incapacity benefit – more than a third of the total – have chosen to drop their benefit claim entirely rather than face a medical assessment'.
Category: News stories -
17/05/2013
Over 4 million working families on state benefits
Around 4.3 million working families, including 40 per cent of all those with children, were receiving benefits or tax credits in 2012, according to a new think-tank analysis – contrary to the impression often given that 'making work pay' is the answer to controlling benefit spending.
The New Policy Institute analysis focuses mainly on payments of housing benefit (HB), council tax benefit (CTB) and working and child tax credits (WTC and CTC) to working families in 2012. It points out that there is no official estimate in this area. Simply adding up the numbers receiving each benefit in isolation would amount to double counting all those who receive more than one. The analysis instead derives estimates from a combination of administrative statistics on the total numbers receiving each of the benefits in isolation, and survey data from the Family Resources Survey and Households Below Average Income (FRS/HBAI).
Category: Reports -
17/05/2013
Over 4 million working families on state benefits
Around 4.3 million working families, including 40 per cent of all those with children, were receiving benefits or tax credits in 2012, according to a new think-tank analysis – contrary to the impression often given that 'making work pay' is the answer to controlling benefit spending.
The New Policy Institute analysis focuses mainly on payments of housing benefit (HB), council tax benefit (CTB) and working and child tax credits (WTC and CTC) to working families in 2012. It points out that there is no official estimate in this area. Simply adding up the numbers receiving each benefit in isolation would amount to double counting all those who receive more than one. The analysis instead derives estimates from a combination of administrative statistics on the total numbers receiving each of the benefits in isolation, and survey data from the Family Resources Survey and Households Below Average Income (FRS/HBAI).
Category: Reports -
07/05/2013
Universal credit ‘in danger of failing to deliver’
The new universal credit system risks failing to deliver on its key objectives, according to a joint report from the TUC and the Child Poverty Action Group. Nine out of ten families, it estimates, will gain nothing following the new system's introduction.
Category: Reports -
25/04/2013
Call for full employment strategy
Austerity policies have increased 'idleness' and given rise to the additional problem of disguised underemployment, according to a think-tank report. The authors call for a fiscal policy designed to promote employment, coupled with a complete redesign of the income tax, national insurance and benefits systems.
Category: Reports -
25/04/2013
Adequate benefits needed for ‘active inclusion’
Independent experts have sounded a series of warnings over the UK's progress on the active inclusion of people most excluded from the labour market. Adequate benefits, they say, are crucial to any active inclusion strategy.
The experts reviewed the coalition government's actions in 2012 on commitments given to the European Commission: their findings were initially summarised in a 'synthesis' report in January 2013, and have now been released in full.Category: Reports
