Blogsearch

In the fourth year of local Council Tax Support (CTS), disparities between the amount of support received by low income claimants in different areas are larger than ever before.…

Benefit sanctioning is much lower in Northern Ireland than in Great Britain. There is little evidence the high level of sanctioning works – government in Northern Ireland can…

Yesterday, in what was billed as a major speech on welfare reform, the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith indicated that the Employment & Support Allowance benefit…

Welfare reform has been one of the most controversial parts of the coalition government’s reform programme since coming to power in 2010. A New Policy Institute…

Today’s State of the Nation Report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has the potential to be the most important official statement on child poverty since Tony…

George Osborne’s announcement that working-age benefits are to be frozen from April 2016 can be defended on grounds of both pragmatism and principle. Principles, however, are not…

The changes to taxes and benefits that came into effect in April 2013 are the Coalition’s most important single package of work and welfare reforms. Some, above all the…

The High Court’s decision that Sandwell’s residency test for entitlement to council tax support was “unlawful” was a moment of sanity in the contradictory…

By introducing choice into the bedroom tax, the LibDems are proposing a principle that can transform welfare reform. The LibDems’ about-turn on the bedroom tax  is to be welcomed,…

In recent days, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has released new statistics on council tax collection in England. Covering the period April 2013 to March…

Tomorrow DWP publish the latest official poverty numbers, but politicians, commentators and voters take note: they will reflect the year 2012/13 – before the main benefit cuts were…

The arithmetic of welfare reform does not offer the Northern Ireland Assembly a way to avoid difficult decisions The political debate on welfare reform continues in Northern…

The last in our 'safety net’ blog series, this blog looks at how many families have an income below the ‘safety net’ as a result of welfare reforms. Research released this week by…

Disabled people have been especially hard hit by the cuts to the social security safety net. But is it a “safety net” that disabled people need? In the previous blogs in this…

In the third of our safety net series we look at the role housing benefit and how, through a series of subtle changes, the safety net for renters is shrinking fast. There are two…

In our opening blog yesterday, we used Cameron’s row with the Catholic hierarchy to make the point that alongside the better known cash benefits, the social security safety net…

On the day when those claiming social security benefits see an annual increase in the money they get, we launch a series of blogs looking at what is happening to the 'safety net'.…

Poorer families could face year-on-year cuts in the safety net following changes to Council Tax Support. New research by the New Policy Institute for the Joseph Rowntree…

As the government boasts that it has held down council tax increases for a fourth year in a row, it’s ignoring the council tax hikes faced by millions of low income households.…