‘As a nation, I believe we all want a decent safety net: if you’re facing a difficult moment in life, the state should be there to help you.’ – Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions, 11 January 2019.
The government says it supports the welfare safety net – but is it still working? Back in December 2018, we submitted evidence to the parliamentary work and pensions committee’s inquiry into the welfare safety net. The … Read more
As we revealed last month, homelessness is continuing to rise. The causes and solutions to homelessness are heavily debated. But one thing is for sure – homelessness isn’t inevitable. It can be prevented.
Along with others, including local housing authorities, Shelter has long argued that benefits are to blame. Restrictions to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates are driving homelessness rates upwards. These increases are, also, making it difficult for local authorities to help families out of homelessness and … Read more
Universal Credit (UC) recently made the headlines for the wrong reasons. Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, came to parliament to correct her statement regarding the National Audit Office’s (NAO) recent report on the government’s flagship benefit. The NAO’s report found that UC is not value for money, and it has significant doubt about its main benefits.
Managed migration makes the problems more immediateThe report’s conclusions became immediate in the last couple of weeks, as plans have been … Read more
This week brings a fundamental change in welfare support for struggling homeowners. For more than 70 years, homeowners, who have low incomes and who receive certain qualifying benefits, have been able to claim support from the government, through Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI).
However, from 6 April 2018 this support is changing. Rather than being paid as a free benefit, SMI will now be paid as a loan and any money claimed from this date onwards will one day need … Read more
You may have seen mine and Paul’s previous blogs about our campaign to soften public attitudes towards welfare, so that political parties will feel less emboldened to implement further cuts, and will work towards improving the system going forward.
We’ve just finished our second pilot of the campaign. We learnt from our target audience and applied some behaviour change theory to our campaigning approach. Here’s seven things we’ve learned (in no particular order).
1. Be authentic
The public can tell … Read more
Following the actions of Fergus and Judith Wilson hundreds of private renters have been served legal eviction notices– simply for receiving some housing benefit. According to the most recent National Landlords Association survey just one in five landlords let to people on benefits.
Those in desperate need may turn to their council for homelessness assistance. All local authorities in England have a legal duty to assist people who are homeless, or threatened with homelessness. As the loss of … Read more
Attempts to moderate the worst impacts of the bedroom tax have suffered a set-back after the High Court ruled that the policy making process did not disproportionately discriminate against disabled people. If you are disabled, have severely disabled children or are at risk of violence, the hope for protection has now shifted back to politicians and campaigners. It has become even more important that national political leaders offer support, or they will bear responsibility for the emerging consequences of this … Read more
Two days after George Osborne’s budget for an ‘aspiration nation’, with its focus on home ownership, today’s homelessness statistics reveal the reality for people at the sharp end of Britain’s housing crisis.
Homelessness acceptances are up 10% since 2011 to 53,450 households, 64% of them accepted because they’re families with dependent children.
The number of households placed in B&B accommodation is up 26% to 4,000, including 1,690 families with children. The number of families stuck in B&Bs beyond the legal … Read more
It’s Living Wage Week 2012. On Monday, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Greater London Authority announced the 2012 rates for London and outside of London – £8.55 and £7.45 respectively.
All help for low-income families to afford a home is welcome. But reading the coverage of the Living Wage announcements, I was struck by the assumption that all that is needed to make a life free of poverty possible is to raise wage rates.
The fact is, though, that … Read more
What price Universal Credit? If today’s reports are to be believed at least £10 billion more than previously assumed, as this is the size of the upcoming welfare cut the Department for Work and Pensions has agreed to accept in exchange for the Treasury’s support for Universal Credit.
It’s been known for a while that the Treasury is nervous about the Department of Work and Pensions’ ability to pull off the ambitious Universal Credit programme. Rumours of delay, IT … Read more
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) used to proudly claim Universal Credit (UC) was the biggest change to the welfare state in over 60 years. Attention is now increasingly focused on the department’s ability to deliver a scheme to justify the rhetoric. Are these soaring ambitions beginning to feel more like albatrosses round the neck of ministers?
Labour has been claiming for months that rollout will slip and has now called for the DWP to delay the launch by … Read more
Today the Government lays regulations to bring the overall benefit cap into force from April 2013. This measure – which restricts the total amount of benefits an out-of-work family can receive to £26,000 a year – proved to be one of the biggest flashpoints of recent welfare reform.
The Government lost a crunch vote that amended the cap to remove child benefit, although Ministers overturned it by citing financial privilege. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was forced to … Read more