The mass devolution of social security benefits next year represents a “very significant fiscal risk” to the Scottish budget, according to the body responsible for Scotland’s economic forecasts.
An “ideological” pursuit of austerity has replaced the Britain’s social safety net with a “harsh and uncaring ethos”, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip...
MPs have criticised the government’s decision to reject their calls to ease benefit sanctions for claimants, saying the system is pushing people into “grinding poverty”.
The government must lift the benefits freeze to stop increasing numbers of people falling into poverty, says Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief executive Campbell Robb.
Labour wants to create a benefits system based on “compassion and respect rather than distrust and stigma”, the shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood has told her party conference.
Child poverty has risen twice as fast as official figures suggest and has been significantly underestimated in government data, a think-tank has warned.
Thousands of sick or disabled people have missed out on employment support allowance due to the government’s “inept” handling of payments, MPs have claimed.
A charity is demanding a major shake up in the social security system because of “shameful” shortcomings that left one and a half million people in destitution in 2017.
Any future recession will hit the poorest families even harder if proposed benefit cuts go ahead, according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The gig economy can offer some useful opportunities to people who struggle to work in conventional ways. The government should make the most of them, says Ben Dobson of Reform.
Universal credit, which amalgamates six welfare benefits, still has cross-party support, despite being beset by delays and fears that it will fail to meet its main objective of encouraging people to...
There should be a switch in how the government accounts for benefit spending as part of moves to introduce a “welfare earnback” for councils that can help people into work, a report has recommended.
The government’s Universal Credit benefit reform scheme must be “reclaimed” from the Treasury in order to achieve its aim of making work pay, the Resolution Foundation has warned today.
Universal Credit will cut annual benefit spending by £2.7bn, an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found, but more than 2 million working families are likely to be worse off.
Chancellor George Osborne has said the Treasury will look at ways of compensating people who are set to lose out through tax credit changes after the House of Lords yesterday voted to stall the...
MPs are to probe the effectiveness of local welfare provision, including devolved council tax benefit schemes, in order to determine best practice across the country.
Less than one-sixth of the losses faced by households from the summer Budget benefit cuts will be recouped by the introduction of the ‘national living wage’, the Institute for Fiscal...
People who suffer from obesity or substance abuse problems could see their benefits cut if they fail to accept appropriate treatment, the government has warned today.
The Department for Work and Pensions 2014/15 accounts have been qualified once again because of “unacceptably” high levels of fraud and error in benefit expenditure, the National Audit Office said.
