Councils could mitigate the cut in Council Tax Benefit funding by tackling fraud and error when they take over the system next year, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said yesterday.
Ministers have been urged to tackle youth unemployment after latest figures revealed that almost 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training.
The £1.25bn of funding being channelled through the pupil premium is not necessarily going to be well spent, both the Sutton Trust education charity and Ofsted have warned.
Up to £126m is being made available to businesses and charities in England that succeed in getting thousands of jobless youngsters back into education or training.
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has hit out at the Department for Work and Pensions after its accounts were qualified for the 24th successive year.
There is ‘not a snowball’s chance in hell’ that the government will reach the statutory target to eradicate child poverty by 2020, former Labour minister Alan Milburn said today.
Working families with children have been dealt a ‘triple financial blow’ in the recession through cuts to tax credits and rising costs of childcare and transport, according to the Joseph Rowntree...
Around 25% of the early participants in the government’s flagship back-to-work scheme were off benefits after 36 weeks, figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions have revealed today.
Some benefits paid to pensioners should be means-tested to meet the costs of reforms to adult social care, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said today.
Welsh people on low incomes are set to be £74 a year worse off following the government’s localisation of Council Tax Benefit, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found.
Public sector employment in the UK fell by 39,000 in the first three months of 2012, the tenth consecutive quarterly drop, the Office for National Statistics revealed today.
Poor communities will bear the brunt of the government’s decision to reduce funding for council tax relief by £500m when it is localised from next year, the Local Government Association has warned...
UK public spending must start addressing the future impact of the ageing population to avoid ‘an unsustainable squeeze’ on the finances, the government was told today.
Local authorities face a ‘tough challenge’ in taking control of Council Tax Benefit at the same time as it is being cut by 10%, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned today.
Unison has today warned UK local authorities that the government’s roll-out of the new Universal Credit benefit could increase the strain on council resources.
Parents who persistently allow their children to miss school should have their Child Benefit docked, the government’s ‘behaviour czar’ has recommended.
Every young person out of work for more than a year should be given a publicly funded ‘Youth Job Promise’, according to the independent experts examining last summer’s riots.