Long delays for Universal Credit payments
Government statistics out today, confirm that 23% of new Universal Credit (UC) claims are not paid on time. When “on time” for most people claiming ...
Category: Welfare Reform blog
Appeals and the work capability assessment
Figures obtained by the Independent this week have shown that the government currently spends almost £40 million on fighting disputes around sickness benefits. ...
The two child policy and the end of means testing
This financial year has seen a large number of new changes to the benefts system. Maybe it’s a symptom of the relentless pace of goverment cuts, but the r...
Universal Credit full roll-out
The full area by area roll-out of Universal Credit has now been published and plans can be properly made for dealing with the consequences. Below, I’ve pr...
The future of supported housing
In my last post on the local housing allowance (LHA) cap to housing benefit in the social sector, I talked about how pensioners would lose out. My plan was to d...
The new benefit cap is almost here – are you ready?
From 7th November the new benefit cap rates will start rolling out across the country. It is one of the biggest of the many large changes introduced by the Welf...
JSA down, UC up but why are women not claiming?
Last week the Office for National Statistics released its quarterly reports on the UK labour market. The Government were quick to herald the record employment s...
Universal Credit Digital Service – further areas announced
The Government has announced an updated timetable for the roll out of the full universal credit (UC) service. Throughout Great Britain, the majority of single j...
The Pensions Triple Lock – is support for pensioners all that it seems?
One of the iconic policies of the coalition government was the pensions ‘triple lock’. This guarantees an increase in pension incomes of the highest of inflatio...
Do tax cuts help the low-paid?
On the Guardian website today, the figures on their piece looking at what the budget means for various households were provided by me, in conjunction with Stepc...