Shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith has pledged to change the debate on social security to reflect that what he called a national asset that represents the “collective pooling of risk...
The government’s flagship Universal Credit welfare reform will be available in three-quarters of all jobcentres by Christmas under the next phase of its national rollout, ministers have said.
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...
The government’s tax and benefit changes will cost poorest households an average of £460 a year, despite the minimum wage increase, a Trades Union Congress analysis has found.
Cuts to benefits announced in the summer Budget will leave thousands of low-income households worse off next April despite the introduction of the “national living wage”, Unison claimed...
The number of debt recovery cases sent by local councils to bailiffs has increased by one-sixth in just over two years, figures from the Money Advice Trust have revealed.
Family carers for vulnerable children in Scotland are likely to be left worse off under Universal Credit because of the UK government’s failure to take proper account of Scotland’s different legal...
The government is to implement major reforms to unemployment support for under-25s from April 2017, with young people set to lose benefits if they turn down job offers, apprenticeships or training.
The poorest 10% of households pay the highest proportion of their gross income in taxes of any income group, according to an analysis by the Taxpayers’ Alliance.
With concerns that Generation Y is missing out on government largesse, do public accounts need to be more transparent and reflect the costs of, say, future pension liabilities? It’s a question...
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.
Auditor general Amyas Morse has qualified his opinion on the 2014/15 resource accounts of Revenue and Customs due to error and fraud in the payment of tax credits.
The number of young people leaving care who are not in education, employment or training has increased in every year since 2007/08, with the current proportion costing the state £240m, auditors...
Former Treasury special adviser Julia Goldsworthy told CIPFA conference that the chancellor had delivered a ‘bold’ Budget, focusing on his key themes of lower taxes, lower welfare and...
In a statement filled with policy announcements, the chancellor reiterated his commitment to devolution. Councils must get their proposals to the government before they get landed with someone else’s...
The Budget gave us the answers to where the £12bn in welfare cuts will come from. But we need a more sustainable and strategic approach to the drivers of welfare spending.
The maximum amount that households can claim in benefits is to be cut from £26,000 to £23,000 in London, and £20,000 in the rest of the country, from next April as part of plans to...
The government has been urged to press ahead with deeper welfare cuts after analysis of official statistics showed that over half of UK households receive more from the state than they pay in taxes.
David Cameron has today pledged to end the “merry-go-round” of low-paid workers having their wages taxed but then receiving in-work benefits such as tax credits.
Neither the Treasury nor the Cabinet Office currently monitor how well payment-by-results schemes work, despite £15bn being spent through the contracts, the National Audit Office has said.
