Incapacity benefit review suggests majority can work

A doctor from the Burnley area who phoned Radio 5's discussion on this
report alleged that a patient with 'severe' angina had been found fit to work.

Ministers have said a pilot review of incapacity benefit has indicated that two thirds of claimants may be able to return to work in some form.

All those receiving the benefit in Burnley and Aberdeen are being reassessed, ahead of a UK-wide review of the payments starting in April.

Some 29% were deemed fit to work immediately while 39% could consider working with the right help ...

BBC NEWS  14 Feb 2011

Lax benefit rules not responsible for high disability figures

The number of claimants of the benefits that became IB soared from fewer than 600,000 in 1975 to just under 2.5 million in 1995.

That the figure then broadly peaked, at the very time IB was introduced, has been seen as proof of the laxity of the system that preceded it.

Berthoud says things are not so simple: a fuller examination of data shows "little sign" that changes in benefit rules influenced the ratio of IB payments to disability disadvantage.

There is also, surprisingly, relatively little correlation between the employment chances of disabled people and the business cycle, despite the widespread assumption that the fastest IB growth was stimulated by the industrial crisis of the early 1980s.

There is, on the other hand, a strong correlation with regional economic variation, with disabled people in Scotland and the north-east consistently having least chance of work.

The principal data analysed by Berthoud is the annual General Household Survey, in which people are asked to declare any "limiting long-standing illness".

He finds not only a clear rising trend until the mid-1990s, but also that most of the rise was accounted for by people with more severe impediments – suggesting that the growth in IB claims reflected a genuine increase in numbers of people with disabilities in the population as a whole.

Guardian  19 Jan 2011    

Trends in the employment of disabled people in Britain

Precarity – the Causes and Effects of Insecure Employment

Up to 500,000 wrongly denied incapacity benefit, figures show

In the first attempt to quantify the numbers refused incapacity benefit only to have it restored, Steve Griffiths, a former government consultant, says the figures are "at least half a million" during that period.

Griffiths used official statistics gleaned from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the tribunal service and social security statistics to get to "at least" 500,000 wrongly barred from incapacity benefit since 1996.

He discovered that at least 300,000 claimants won their tribunals when they appealed.

He says this figure should be added to a different category of at least 200,000 people who have been refused incapacity benefit over the past 15 years but have ended up back on incapacity benefit.

He arrives at this second figure by using DWP research that finds 35% of those removed from incapacity benefit – who cumulatively number more than one million people – have been in such a position ...

The Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas ... said:

"There is a crisis in our country, but it's not simply a crisis of welfare dependency. It's a crisis of mass chronic ill health caused by worklessness and poverty, not a lifestyle choice.

"Economic crisis encourages a search for scapegoats among the poor and dispossessed. A punitive welfare system is a consequence.

"Labour has to change the terms of debate on welfare in this country or we will inexorably head down a dangerous path toward hate politics and social conflict." ...

Guardian  03 Jan 2011    Welfare_Workfare

Charity's struggle to meet demand for essentials of cookers, carpets and coats

Every week, Family Action volunteers scrutinise increasingly urgent and bleak applications for emergency welfare grants ...

Every Tuesday morning a group of volunteers ... meet here to scrutinise the forms and approve awards from the trust funds administered by Family Action.

At their last gathering before Christmas, the urgency is poignant.

A string of applications – submitted by social workers, NHS staff, charities and other support groups – are for cookers ...

Carpets are a particular problem ...

Then there are the cases that expose most starkly the kind of poverty many would like to assume cannot exist in the UK: the mothers whose children have no warm clothes to wear outside in the coldest months and must apply for funds to buy shoes, jumpers and coats ...

... the applicants who have been turned down for social fund grants because they have outstanding debts, the ones whose food bills are unaffordably high because they must rely on takeaways with no means to prepare hot food, and those who have no money to cover removal costs when they relocate.

The grants the board make will be delivered swiftly and efficiently ... but all agree they have already seen applications increase.

With the price of white goods rising with the VAT rise, charitable giving falling and interest rates leaving funds low, they fear Tuesday mornings will be bleaker.

Guardian  02 Jan 2011    'Big Society'

Family Action

Prosperous Witney ... services are under strain

State-funded idleness: 1.5m are spending fifth Christmas in a row on sick benefits

Implementing the Washington Consensus with Paul Dacre, social Darwinist

Figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions expose the shocking degree to which a generation of Britons has abandoned work for a life ‘on the sick’.

The statistics show that almost £66billion has been paid out in incapacity benefits alone over the past five years ...

Some 1,478,010 long-term claimants have been on £91.40 a week all that time. A further 500,000 have been claiming it for between two and five years.

The Government believes half the 2.1 million on incapacity benefit could work.

In a sign of how even the young are becoming accustomed to relying on benefits, 468,000 of those who have been claiming incapacity benefit for five years or more – one third of the total – are under the age of 45.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling seized on the figures as evidence that the Coalition is right to demand incapacity claimants undergo a medical assessment to see whether they can work.

"I am on Incapacity benefit and have a genuine need. If I had not been through the system myself (ATOS) and seen for myself that lies are told and things twisted to try to get people off benefit" - tina, london

Same here, I've got written evidence of this and I've been through hell because I have some mental issues and no help, that aren't further being helped by repeated kangaroo court medicals (15 mins with one doctor who cannot be a specialist in every field and who is not a psychiatrist) and the a many months later overturned by an appeal panel (usually three professionals).

The medicals are paid for by results and even if overturned by the appeal panel (which 70% are) they have their money.

- Mark, London, 28/12/2010 11:27

Daily Mail  28 Dec 2010    Atos    Welfare to Workfare

The Perfect Storm?

ESA: It Doesn't Add Up

Citizens Advice Bureau

New benefit system ... forces sick and disabled into work

It's now officially 'unsustainable' to support disabled people

In the comprehensive spending review in October, the coalition said there would be a review of DLA: these plans have now become clearer with its announcement that it intends to scrap the benefit and replace it with personal independent payment (PIP).

In the executive summary of its DLA consultation document, Maria Miller, minister for disabled people, claims the reason for change is that "the rising caseload and expenditure is unsustainable".

Let's be clear: this increased DLA caseload is not because of fraud.

DLA has one of the lowest fraud rates of any benefits.

In fact, government figures published by the House of Commons work and pensions committee suggest that benefit fraud for DLA, carer's and attendance allowance among others has reduced since 2001 from 2.2% to 0.8% between 2008-2009 (the most recent year for which statistics are available).

But in June, the government declared in its Budget 2010 policy costings document that it hopes to save 20% from its DLA budget by changing the way it is allocated: with fraudulent claims less than minimal, the only way to cut the budget by a fifth is to redraw the boundaries over who is eligible ...

Guardian  08 Dec 2010    Cutting the Deficit

Disabled people 'twice as likely' to miss out on careers, courses and holidays

Disabled people claiming benefits face new medical checks

Disability Living Allowance reform

Leonard Cheshire Disability

Disability

Disabled people claiming benefits face new medical checks

Charities alarmed as ministers propose end to automatic right to key allowances ...

Ministers propose to end the automatic right to disability living allowance, worth up to £70 a week for care and up to £50 a week for travel needs.

Claimants will have to wait for a year for the new "personal independence payment" and then submit to a series of tests focusing on "an individual's ability to carry out a range of key activities necessary to everyday life".

A similar system to judge the fitness to work of those claiming disability benefits will have to be overhauled amid mounting evidence that people with serious illnesses are being judged fit when they are not ...

Welfare support will also be conditional on disabled people acting on government instructions to "better manage or improve their situation if appropriate" ...

Guardian  06 Dec 2010    

Frank Field's poverty report challenges 'welfare state sacred cows'

[Frank Field] asserts:

"A healthy pregnancy, positive but authoritative parenting, high quality childcare, a positive approach to learning at home and an improvement in parents' qualifications, can ... trump class background and parental income."

Field argues:

"By the age of three, a baby's brain is 80% formed, and his or her experiences before then shape the way the brain has grown and developed.

"That is not to say, of course, it is all over by then, but ability profiles at that age are highly predictive of profiles at school entry."

He argues there is little sign that schools close these attainment gaps, with children who arrive in the bottom range of ability tending to stay there.

He proposes:

• parenting classes throughout school life, arguing that Britain believes parenting is learnt through osmosis;

• a new index of life chances that can be monitored annually;

• a focus on foundation years equal to primary and secondary schools;

• a rationalisation of children's services, including post-natal work, from the womb to going to school;

• a working-class version of Mumsnet, the online forum for parents;

• kite marking children's tv programmes to help speech development.

He says:

"This goal of changing the distribution of income will be achieved by ensuring that poorer children in the future have the range of abilities necessary to secure better paid, higher skilled jobs."

mariansummerlight
3 December 2010 7:55AM

Income is the most relevent factor in relation to poverty - it is how it is mneasured.

If people cannot afford the basic esseintials of life no amount of 'life chances' indices is going ot make an ounce of difference.

The reason Labours anti poverty measures failed is because they set a bar and then cut out of work benefits to subsidise low pay.

They did nothing to raise the bottom level or redistribute wealth so there was no improvement overall.

Because they followed Thatcherite policies and allowed business to pursue short term profit at the expense of the wider economy and society.

Our economic base narrowed, the pre Thatcher peak of unemployment (1m+) has become the base line and has been above that level for over thirty years.

Because of these two factors our skill base has also shrunk and generational welfare dependency has become an issue - it never was previously.

There have been cultural changes as a result of systemic poverty and these do impact negatively on peoples lives and their ability to improve themselves, these consequences of failed economic and social policy do need to be addressed.

But treating the consequences alone and not dealing with the structural causes is like treating the pain caused by a brain tumour with aspirin.

Until these structural causes are addressed the above is just a thinly veiled attack on those at the bottom and provides ideological support for pushing the poorest deeper into abject poverty.

socialistMike
3 December 2010 9:41AM

The welfare state was designed when all politicians agreed on their main duty - provide full employment.

But Thatcherism decided to get rid of that aim and, in the process, made the welfare state unfit for its new purpose : dealing with the disasters of the market.

That's the basic problem. Because politicians stopped prioritising work and employement, the welfare state was subjected to strains it wasn't designed to cope with such as long-term unemployment, generational unemployment and lack of opportunity.

But these strains have been interpreted as 'the whole system is wrong' and needs 'reform'. In reality, our leaders want to get rid of the welfare system because it stands in the way of low employment and high insecurity as a policy.

What they should do instead is return to policy that works in our interests, not the interests of footloose capital that seeks to exploit us without contributing anything to our society.

Guardian  03 Dec 2010    Crackdown on Welfare    Deprived Children    'Reserve Army'

New mothers and fathers should have parenting classes

Child benefit should be frozen, says Frank Field

Frank Field to lead independent review into poverty in Britain

Frank Field

Incapacity benefit tests face overhaul after damning report

Claimants feel unfairly treated by 'impersonal and mechanistic' tests, says independent review ...

The review, conducted by the academic Malcolm Harrington, an occupational health specialist ... found that the assessments, run by a French multinational, Atos Origin, which received £54m from the coalition government for the contract, failed people with mental illnesses and long-term disabilities.

One form which claimants needed to complete ran to 28 pages and almost half "found the questionnaire difficult or impossible to complete".

Another problem was that people were characterised by "descriptors" within a computer system that relied on questions apparently unrelated to work.

In one instance people were asked whether they had "loaded a dishwasher or washing machine" that day.

"It does not bother to ask whether the claimant has a dishwasher or washing machine. That is the danger with computer systems and drop-down menus," said Harrington.

"We want to rely much more on healthcare professionals and assessments."

He pointed out that 40% of those found fit for work by the system appealed and won – and added that 40% of people who went in front of a judge did so with "additional medical information" ...

Guardian  23 Nov 2010    Atos Origin    'Mechanistic modelling'

Council tenants could lose right to home for life

Precarity comes to 'social' housing

Mr Shapps spoke of the need for reform of the system to help an estimated five million people on the waiting list for social housing ...

Prime Minister David Cameron has already said he wants an end to council tenancies for life and the introduction of fixed-term contracts of "five or 10 years".

But, under the reforms, councils and housing associations will be able to offer contracts of just two years ...

Independent  22 Nov 2010    Ponzi Housing Market

Benefit policy based on figures culled from web

Iain Duncan Smith misled Parliament by passing off figures from a property comparison website owned by the Daily Mail as official government figures.

In a parliamentary debate, the Work and Pensions Secretary claimed that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that private sector rents had fallen by 5 per cent last year.

At the same time he claimed the amount local authorities paid to private landlords had risen by 3 per cent.

But, in fact, the ONS does not collect such statistics and the figures he quoted came from the website findaproperty.com owned by Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers ...

Independent  19 Nov 2010    

We were told to expect better

Welfare reform: government backs system of working in 'slivers of time'

Ultra-flexible work system, which allows people to sell their labour in small blocks of time, is placed at the heart of the government's welfare reforms ...

Lord Freud and Maria Miller, the welfare ministers, are examining changes to benefit rules to allow people to sign up for work for as little as two hours a week under the slivers of time initiative ...

Slivers of time, a social enterprise founded by the former BBC producer Wingham Rowan, is designed to tap into the pool of people who cannot work the usual hours expected even of the average part-time employee.

It is aimed at parents with young children, disabled people who may not be available for work for most of the week, people who care for a dependent adult or the long-term unemployed who want to ease slowly back into work ...

Duncan Smith's welfare reform white paper, unveiled last week, proposes that the "earnings disregard" for a lone parent should increase to £5,000 and to £7,500 for a disabled household once the universal credit system is introduced ...

Guardian  14 Nov 2010    'Reserve Army'

Coalition facing backlash as hardship payments scrapped

The coalition government was tonight facing a backlash against the most radical welfare reforms since the second world war after ministers unveiled plans to withdraw hardship payments from unemployed people who forfeit their right to benefits ...

The white paper says:

"We are considering replacing the current system of hardship payments with loans to the extent that is possible.

"We also want to consider ways of ensuring that those who persistently fail to meet the requirements imposed upon them cannot rely on these alternative sources of support for the entire duration of their sanction." ...

Guardian  11 Nov 2010    

Benefits culture is 'national crisis'

Mr Duncan Smith said that his reforms to the benefits system meant that “it will always pay for you to take a job”.

Around four million jobs were created in the economic boom from the mid 1990s but 4.5million remained on out of work benefits before the recession had started.

He said a new Universal Benefit would lift 350,000 children and 500,000 working age adults out of poverty, while the number of “workless households” would be cut by 300,000.

The new scheme would also mean that 700,000 people on low wages would be able to keep more of their earnings by 2017. He said: “We want them to see the opportunities of work.”

The changes would also save £500million in administration costs every year, and cut a further £1billion from the annual amount lost to fraud and error ...

Telegraph  11 Nov 2010    'Reserve Army'

What choice is there for those forced off disability benefits?

Tougher welfare sanctions spark 'destitution' warnings

HMRC computer system may delay arrival of universal credit

Benefit reforms can't force employers to hire the work-shy

Work-shy will be 'pushed' into working for free

At-a-glance: Benefits overhaul

Benefits reform cannot be a one-size-fits-all policy

The beauty of universal credit is its simplicity. But this may also be its undoing.

The reason is the simpler the universal credit system, the larger the number of losers it will create.

The problem stems from the fact that increasing numbers of people face marginal tax rates of more than 70%.

Duncan Smith wants the tax rate facing the poor to be 65% at most.

The reason for such penal rates are that people's varying circumstances are taken into account.

The bewildering complexity of the benefits system is that it aims to smooth the topography of modern poverty.

The poor lead complex lives and a one-size-fits-all policy is hard to reconcile with the facts on the ground.

So we can expect that the universal credit system won't include every benefit.

Child tax credits, council tax benefits and free school meals will all lie outside it. But housing benefit will be included and the dramatic changes to it are a pointer to where universal credit is going.

Taken to a logical extreme the proposed changes end up paying a "common" housing benefit rate, which does not take into account a recipient's circumstances.

Extrapolate enough and you see that the amount of housing benefit available in the future will be way below what many receiving help get today.

In this analysis universal credit appears to be a Tea Party-style policy. But it's a flat benefits system rather than a flat tax one ...

Guardian  10 Nov 2010    

Welfare: the 18th Brumaire of Iain Duncan Smith

In copying the failed US 90s model for getting people off welfare into work, IDS is playing out his own farcical repetition of tragedy ...

New York City – a centre of welfare reform under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani even before the federal welfare reform law passed with Bill Clinton's signature in 1996 – bears all of the hallmarks of Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms.

In New York City's "Work Experience Program" or "WEP", welfare recipients were compelled to work for their benefits with their hours set by dividing the total value of their cash and housing allowances by the minimum wage.

Because financial strain had earlier forced New York City to reduce its staff by more than 16,000 positions (many in lower-skilled clerical and maintenance work), the new WEP workforce – 38,000 strong at its height in 1999 – supplanted the work of relatively well-paid public employees.

They would not be hired back.

And, indeed, there were quite a few cases of former public employees compelled to "work off" their benefits in the same work they had done earlier.

Giuliani was also aggressive about being sure that anyone who could work, did work.

New York hired Health Solutions Services, a private firm like Atos in Britain, whose doctors' judgments about the fitness of many benefits recipients to work were at odds with those of other medical professionals, and whose judgments were often successfully challenged.

In other words, the medical screening process was baldly a way to harass people off the dole, rather than to meet their actual needs ...

Guardian  09 Nov 2010    'Reserve Army'

Clegg: benefit reform will cut jobless households by 300,000

Food Stamps USA

Voluntary work has merit, but is no substitute for a paid job

It is surely not unreasonable to expect those who are able-bodied but have long been – for whatever reason – without a job, to contribute a portion of their time to the general good.

The difficulties are less to do with the underlying principle than with the practice, which risks throwing up all sorts of potential anomalies and contradictions.

The vast majority of those currently receiving jobseeker's allowance are doing so for the simple reason that they cannot find a job – and their number is only likely to grow, perhaps massively, as spending cuts hit local councils and other parts of the public sector.

The danger could be that paid jobs will be cut, only to reappear as unpaid jobs in the voluntary sector.

It is not hard to imagine the absurd situation where a local council employee is laid off, only to be displaced by a benefit recipient putting in his or her voluntary hours.

Which poses the further question of basic justice: whether a job should not be rewarded, at very least, at the rate of the minimum wage ...

Independent  08 Nov 2010    Cutting the Deficit    'Reserve Army'    

Unemployed told: do four weeks of unpaid work or lose your benefits

The measures will be announced to parliament by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, as part of what he will describe as a new "contract" with the 1.4 million people on jobseekers' allowance.

The government's side of the bargain will be the promise of a new "universal credit", to replace all existing benefits, that will ensure it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare.

In return, where advisers believe a jobseeker would benefit from experiencing the "habits and routines" of working life, an unemployed person will be told to take up "mandatory work activity" of at least 30 hours a week for a four-week period.

If they refuse or fail to complete the programme their jobseeker's allowance payments, currently £50.95 a week for those under 25 and £64.30 for those over 25, could be stopped for at least three months.

The Department for Work and Pensions plans to contract private providers to organise the placements with charities, voluntary organisations and companies.

An insider close to the discussions said:

"We know there are still some jobseekers who need an extra push to get them into the mindset of being in the working environment and an opportunity to experience that environment.

"This is all about getting them back into a working routine which, in turn, makes them a much more appealing prospect for an employer looking to fill a vacancy, and more confident when they enter the workplace. The goal is to break into the habit of worklessness." ...

Observer  07 Nov 2010    Cutting the Deficit    'Reserve Army'

Welfare: the 18th Brumaire of Iain Duncan Smith

Long-term jobless 'could face compulsory manual labour'

Should long-term benefit claimants do community work?

Work-shy will be 'pushed' into working for free

How Britain's new welfare state was born in the USA

2.5m better off under our welfare reforms

Under the new welfare system to be outlined on Thursday, claimants will have to take jobs or face losing all state handouts.

Mr Duncan Smith said: "The message will go across; play ball or it's going to be difficult."

The new credit will provide a clear incentive to work and tougher penalties for those who refuse.

Mr Duncan Smith said: “One thing we can do is pull people in to do one or two weeks’ manual work — turn up at 9am and leave at 5pm, to give people a sense of work, but also when we think they’re doing other work.” ...

Telegraph  07 Nov 2010    Cutting the Deficit    'Reserve Army'

Benefit reforms could 'push thousands into poverty'

Two thirds of welfare cuts will fall on working families

These cuts aren't building a 'big society'; they're tearing it down

Two welfare workers describe how the coalition's cuts will undermine their clients' already precarious livelihoods ...

Atos, the company being awarded contracts to find many unfit people capable for work, has a long association in doing assessments of claimants both for IB and DLA.

It does not have a very good reputation in my line of work.

I have attended a number of medical assessments with clients and have had to explain the term "bipolar" to an Italian professional and "Asperger's" to a Greek one – neither of whom seemed to have heard of the terms before, yet here they were passing judgment on my client's fitness to work ...

Guardian  05 Nov 2010    Atos    Cutting the Deficit

Unum Provident

Bigger welfare state 'reduces hard drug use'

Full employment is also worth a try ...

Alex Stevens, professor in criminal justice at the University of Kent, said countries that imprison swaths of drug offenders and that have a limited welfare state, such as the US and to a lesser extent, the UK, consistently have "serious drug problems".

However, countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, which offer generous benefits, have dramatically curbed the spread of hard drugs such as heroin.

Stevens said his book, Drugs, Crime and Public Health, showed social inclusion was needed to reduce drug use, rather than a programme of "mass incarceration".

There are two reasons, he said, why welfare is so important: regular benefits keep people out of a criminal underclass and the welfare state allows addicts to kick the habit by bringing stability to their lives.

"Making sure users have a roof over their heads means they can be enrolled in programmes to get them off drugs." ...

Guardian  02 Nov 2010    Alcohol, Cannabis & Nicotine    Crackdown on Welfare

Crime and Welfare Equation

Landlords claim housing benefit sums are 'fiddled'

Landlords' groups have written to Lord Freud ... asking him to retract his claim last month that "some unscrupulous landlords are charging benefit claimants over the odds to make a quick buck at the expense of the taxpayer."

Their analysis of Department of Work and Pensions research shows almost 70 per cent of the rise in the housing benefit bill was caused by additional claimants – mainly people who lost their jobs in the recession.

They estimate that a further 17 per cent is due to an increase in payments in the social rented sector – due to the transfer of council house stock to housing associations, which have higher rents, while only 13 per cent is due to an increase in average payments in the private rented sector ...

Independent  03 Nov 2010    Cutting the Deficit    Ponzi Housing Market

Housing benefit reform: beneficial, not brutal

The Coalition's proposals, on housing benefit might be radical, but they are also necessary ...

... at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, David Cameron stuck to his guns.

The intention, he reminded MPs, is not just to shave £2.5 billion from the housing benefit bill, but to rein in spending that has – as in so many areas – got utterly out of control.

It is not just that the cost has jumped by 50 per cent in the past five years alone; it is that families are receiving quite astonishingly excessive amounts.

To put it in perspective, consider how much you would have to earn, after tax, to pay rent of £30,000 or £40,000 per year ...

As a result of these new measures – which limit housing benefit to £400 a week for a four-bedroom house or £290 for a two-bedroom flat – some benefit claimants may no longer be able to afford to live in central London.

But they will be joining a very large club indeed.

Nor is it so brutal to insist that payments will decrease after a year of unemployment.

First, the proposed dip is only by 10 per cent.

Second, the benefits system should encourage people to leave it, rather than to remain trapped in joblessness and dependency.

The Coalition's proposals, as with its wider package of welfare reforms, might be radical, but they are also both necessary and – in the end – compassionate.

We urge ministers to stand firm.

Telegraph  27 Oct 2010

Blog    Cutting the Deficit    Ponzi Housing Market

Housing benefit cut would make London 'unaffordable'

UK house prices: April-June 2010 - Greater London

UK house prices: April-June 2010 - North West

A short history of UK house prices

UK House Prices Index Historical Data

The Depression of 2010

Housing benefit reform: beneficial, not brutal

The Coalition's proposals, on housing benefit might be radical, but they are also necessary ...

... at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, David Cameron stuck to his guns.

The intention, he reminded MPs, is not just to shave £2.5 billion from the housing benefit bill, but to rein in spending that has – as in so many areas – got utterly out of control.

It is not just that the cost has jumped by 50 per cent in the past five years alone; it is that families are receiving quite astonishingly excessive amounts.

To put it in perspective, consider how much you would have to earn, after tax, to pay rent of £30,000 or £40,000 per year ...

As a result of these new measures – which limit housing benefit to £400 a week for a four-bedroom house or £290 for a two-bedroom flat – some benefit claimants may no longer be able to afford to live in central London.

But they will be joining a very large club indeed.

Nor is it so brutal to insist that payments will decrease after a year of unemployment.

First, the proposed dip is only by 10 per cent.

Second, the benefits system should encourage people to leave it, rather than to remain trapped in joblessness and dependency.

The Coalition's proposals, as with its wider package of welfare reforms, might be radical, but they are also both necessary and – in the end – compassionate.

We urge ministers to stand firm.

Telegraph  27 Oct 2010    Blog    Crackdown on Welfare    Cutting the Deficit

Boris Johnson: No 'social cleansing' over benefit cap

Boris Johnson opposes David Cameron over housing benefit cut

UK house prices: April-June 2010 - Greater London

UK house prices: April-June 2010 - North West

909 views for a short history of UK house prices

UK House Prices Index Historical Data

The Depression of 2010

Three-quarters of incapacity benefit claimants are fit to work, says DWP

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures showed that 78% of the 842,100 people reassessed were either fit for work or had closed their claim before medical assessments were complete.

The government is pushing ahead with the programme of reassessing those on the old-style incapacity benefit.

It plans to cut back the wider benefit bill by £18bn ...

Meanwhile, three of Britain's churches accused the chancellor, George Osborne, of exaggerating the scale of benefit fraud in last week's spending review speech, pointing out that official figures were lower than the £5bn claimed by Osborne.

Government sources insisted the inconsistency arose because the chancellor was including the amount wasted through error in his lump sum. The president of the Methodist Conference, Alison Tomlin, said: "Exaggerating benefit fraud points the finger of blame at the poor.

"Let us be clear this recession was not caused by the poor, those on benefits, or even benefit cheats." ...

Guardian  26 Oct 2010    ATOS Origin

Councils plan for exodus of poor families from London

Representatives of London boroughs told a meeting of MPs last week that councils have already block-booked bed and breakfasts and other private accommodation outside the capital – from Hastings, on the south coast, to Reading to the west and Luton to the north – to house those who will be priced out of the London market.

Councils in the capital are warning that 82,000 families – more than 200,000 people – face losing their homes because private landlords, enjoying a healthy rental market buoyed by young professionals who cannot afford to buy, will not cut their rents to the level of caps imposed by ministers.

The controversy follows comment last week by Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, who said the unemployed should "get on the bus" and look for work.

Another unnamed minister said the benefit changes would usher in a phenomenon similar to the Highland Clearances in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when landlords evicted thousands of tenants from their homes in the north of Scotland.

In a sign that housing benefit cuts are fast becoming the most sensitive political issue for the coalition, Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, last night accused the government of deliberate social engineering ...

The National Housing Federation's chief executive, David Orr, described the housing benefit cuts as "truly shocking".

He said: "Unless ministers urgently reconsider these punitive cuts, we could see more people sleeping rough than at any stage during the last 30 years."

Observer  24 Oct 2010    Cutting the Deficit    

Where is this promised land where anyone can find a job?

There is a pernicious – and frankly fairly insulting – assumption that lies at the heart of much government thinking.

It is, as Iain Duncan Smith put it on Thursday night, that "the jobs are out there".

Or, as George Osborne prefers to see it, that unemployment is a "lifestyle choice" taken because of our supposedly lavish welfare payments and, presumably, the innate idleness of sections of the population ...

... do we want the congested, overcrowded south-East to attract yet more people – and for the rest of the kingdom to become depopulated sinks?

Do we abandon Merthyr, Stoke and Knowsley to dereliction? Or should we consider moving the jobs to the people; the lesson we learned from the 1930s' slump?

Independent  23 Oct 2010    Cutting the Deficit    'Reserve Army'

Iain Duncan Smith tells unemployed they should get on the bus to find work

Speaking on BBC2's Newsnight last night, Duncan Smith said:

"There was a very good programme the other day that talked about Merthyr Tydfil and about the fact there were jobs in Cardiff but many of them had become static and [they] didn't know that if they got on a bus an hour's journey they'd be in Cardiff and they could look for the jobs there," he said.

He added: "My point is we need to recognise that the jobs don't come to you."

The work and pensions secretary denied he was having "a get on your bike moment" ...

Guardian  22 Oct 2010    Cutting the deficit, shrink the state    'Reserve Army'

The truth about George Osborne's reforms

Most measures unveiled by George Osborne today fall not on higher-rate taxpayers, but on the workless, the infirm and the poor ..

Taking the measures one at a time, the first – and the biggest – was to "time limit contributory employment and support allowance" for one year, that is the benefit formerly known as incapacity benefit.

What this means is that a disabled or seriously sick person who has a working spouse, however low-paid their job may be, will lose their personal entitlement to benefits after a year ...

On housing benefit, already savaged in June, there was a move to link the maximum rents paid for council and housing association properties to the market rent, something which will further encourage the cleansing of the poor out of central London ...

Guardian  20 Oct 2010    Cutting the Deficit, Shrinking the State

Cameron's Risky Shock Therapy

Osborne swings the welfare axe

Osborne wields axe

The truth about George Osborne's reforms

Most measures unveiled by George Osborne today fall not on higher-rate taxpayers, but on the workless, the infirm and the poor ..

Taking the measures one at a time, the first – and the biggest – was to "time limit contributory employment and support allowance" for one year, that is the benefit formerly known as incapacity benefit.

What this means is that a disabled or seriously sick person who has a working spouse, however low-paid their job may be, will lose their personal entitlement to benefits after a year ...

On housing benefit, already savaged in June, there was a move to link the maximum rents paid for council and housing association properties to the market rent, something which will further encourage the cleansing of the poor out of central London ...

Guardian  20 Oct 2010    Cutting the Deficit, Shrinking the State

New council house tenants face trebling in rents to pay for new homes

Osborne swings the welfare axe

Osborne wields axe

Cameron's Risky Shock Therapy

UK's Nobel economics laureate warns chancellor: don't axe jobless benefits

"I would be very concerned if social benefits are targeted," Pissarides told the Observer.

"The risk is essentially that people will sink into poverty. When people get into poverty, they get disillusioned with their engagement in the labour force, they face longer periods of unemployment, and it becomes much harder to get them back into the workforce." ...

The government has already said it will scrap universal child benefit and has ended the roll-out of the Future Jobs Fund, intended to get young unemployed people back to work.

Pissarides expressed concern that Osborne will be tempted to look at broader social benefits such as jobseeker's allowance and housing benefit ...

Fears over the withdrawal of stimulus from the economy are likely to be aggravated by the Item Club's findings ...

Item is concerned that the scale of the fiscal retrenchment – which is expected to shave 0.6 percentage points off growth in each of the next four years – could be "too much, too soon" ...

Observer  17 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review    'Reserve Army'    

Spending cuts: We have to see this through, says Osborne

Osborne is expected to outline £83bn of cuts, the most drastic reductions in state spending since the second world war ...

"We have to see this through," the chancellor said, signalling that he would not shy away from the cuts despite warnings about their impact.

"Our plan is the plan that will restore credibility to the public finances," said Osborne.

"It is what the IMF, the OECD, international observers say is necessary. It is what British business says is necessary.

"People in this country know we were on the brink of bankruptcy, and if we are going to have growth and jobs in the future we have got to move this country into a place where people can invest with confidence." ...

He added: "We have got to make some tough decisions, but the priority is healthcare, children's education, early years provision - particularly for some of our poorest - and the big infrastructure developments like Crossrail, Mersey Gateway, the synchrotron [UK-funded science facility], broadband." ...

Osborne revealed that those caught making repeated bogus benefit claims would have their welfare payments halted for up to three years ...

Guardian  17 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review

IFS attacks Treasury's claim CPI link for benefits is 'fair'

From April next year, benefits will no longer rise in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) or the "Rossi" index, but with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which grows at a slower rate.

Defending the decision, which will help the Treasury save £5.8bn annually by 2015, the Chancellor argued that CPI would "provide a fairer reflection of benefits claimants' experiences".

However, the IFS, a respected public finances think-tank, disagreed – saying that for the poorest in society "under current benefit rules, the coverage of the CPI does not look like an improvement over the status quo".

For universal benefits, such as the child benefit, the institute was stronger still, claiming: "The coverage of goods and services in the RPI is superior." ...

The IFS's critique came after the latest inflation data showed prices remained stubbornly high in September.

Telegraph  13 Oct 2010    ONS Inflation

IFS: A tale of 3 indices

Claimants to face benefits reassessment

Mental health charity Mind called for a revision of the test before it is rolled out to over 1.5 million claimants nationwide.

Sophie Corlett, Mind's director of external relations, said: "The benefit test being used in the pilots starting today has a fundamental problem when it comes to people with mental health problems - it does not do what it's set up for, which is to distinguish accurately which people can work and which people can't.

"Over half of all benefit claimants have a mental health problem, so it should go without saying that any fitness to work test should thoroughly assess mental health and whether it presents a barrier to work and coping in the workplace. However, many people with mental health issues have found that the impact of their condition on their ability to work is barely recognised.

"The Government wants to toughen up on benefit claimants while supporting those in genuine need - this system doesn't identify those in genuine need.

"The consequences of being wrongly declared fit for work can be devastating. People with mental health problems need vocational and health-related support to get them ready for a job again. Incorrectly putting these people onto Jobseekers Allowance will see a reduction in their benefit, less support for getting a job, greater pressure to get to work sooner, and financial sanctions applied if they fail.

"This could not only throw people into long-term poverty, but the distress could actively make their mental health problems worse, and make it even harder for them to get a job."

Independent  11 Oct 2010    Mental Illness

Britain tops jobless league table

Coalition hints at bringing end to universal benefit

David Cameron's claim to lead a "revolution of fairness" will be put to the test this week as the first wave of incapacity benefit claimants are ordered to find a job and the Treasury considers a plan to strip pensioners of universal benefits.

The Prime Minister uses an exclusive article in The Independent on Sunday to insist the fairness of the looming spending cuts cannot be measured by how much money the state spends on welfare ...

... with time running out to find the savings before George Osborne's Commons statement in 10 days' time, a number of earlier policy positions have already been abandoned.

Business Secretary Vince Cable ditched his call for a "graduate tax" to fund university places.

But the move to alter the winter fuel allowance could prove the most explosive ...

It is understood the £250 payment could be limited to people who claim the benefit pension credit, saving £1.5bn a year – more than halving the cost of the scheme.

Liberal Democrats are also pushing for the benefit to be taxed. Mr Cable has acknowledged that it is "odd" that he receives the payment.

Some ministers suggest raising the qualifying age from 60 to 66 – and cutting the basic payment ...

The first wave of long-term claimants of incapacity benefit will be ordered back to work from tomorrow as new figures reveal the bill for keeping two million people on the sick has topped £133bn in the past decade.

Two pilots to reassess claimants for their fitness to work begin in Burnley and Aberdeen, with only those in genuine need allowed on to the employment and support allowance (ESA).

A trial to assess all new claimants for ESA from October 2008 to November 2009 showed only 6 per cent were unable to work at all ...

Independent  10 Oct 2010    

New benefits system forces three-quarters of claimants back to work

Statistics and Information on Atos Origin

CAB evidence on medical assessments

Disabled people 'to lose £9bn from cuts'

The Government's proposed benefit reforms will see 3.5 million disabled people lose about £9.2bn of critical support by 2015, a report from Demos claims ...

Demos warns that by 2015, families with disabled children could lose more than £3,000 each, and disabled adults whose partner is a full-time carer could lose about £3,000.

Kitty Ussher, director of Demos, said: "The emerging evidence from recent years is that the only way to get those furthest from the labour market back into work is through individual client-led support.

"Cutting the welfare bill is attractive to government in the current climate, but without better support for individuals it threatens to just exclude people further."

The Independent  09 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review    'Wasted Lives'

Destination Unknown

Benefit cuts will squeeze vulnerable out of London

The federation calculates that, if enacted, the changes would see the rent charged on 114,000 homes occupied by benefit claimants in London become unaffordable – leaving more than 250,000 people "at risk of losing their residences".

Osborne's move would not just affect wealthy areas such as Westminster but also poorer parts of the capital such as Lambeth and Southwark.

The research, which is based on official government figures, backs the claim that poor and vulnerable people will no longer be able to live in the capital – forced instead to go to London's fringes or pushed into "overcrowded conditions" ...

David Orr, the federation's chief executive, said:

"London is one of the most vibrant and socially mixed cities in the world – and yet the diversity, for which it is so famous, is under threat from the government's proposal to bring all housing benefit allowances into line with the bottom third of rents.

He said: "The changes push 160,000 vulnerable households into competing for just 46,000 homes [which] is extremely worrying and morally wrong."

While some landlords could reduce rents in line with the new upper limit, the federation says that the housing market in London is so strong that most would simply decide to keep their charges at the same level and let properties out to private tenants ...

Guardian  08 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review    'Reserve Army'

State 'should not finance' big families on benefits

Mr Hunt ... said:

"If ever there was a week when the Conservative Party and the coalition demonstrated its commitment to fairness, it's this week when they removed child benefit from top-rate taxpayers." ...

Donald Hirsch, from the Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Social Policy told BBC Radio 4's Today programme statements such as Mr Hunt's marked "quite a slippery slope".

"It's a real simplification to divide people effectively into these undeserving poor or lifetime poor who we say 'these are the choices you make and if you make them we're not going to support you', and people who are working.

"In the present system we do expect people to go out and look for work if they can and if they lose their jobs we think about their needs, not just some crude comparison with someone who is working on an average wage."

BBC NEWS  07 Oct 2010    'Reserve Army'

Government's benefits cap will penalise couples

Child benefit saga: Lessons to be learnt

The BBC's Stephanie Flanders sums up the benefits dilemma.

Labour tilted the tax and benefit system in the direction of children and families, particularly low income single parent families ...

It is going to be hard to raise serious money from the benefit system without tilting it back.

According to the IFS, single parents are now about 13-16% better off as a result of Labour's tax and benefit changes, depending on whether they work.

Non-pensioner households without children, on average, are worse off than they would have been if the 1997 system had remained unchanged.

(These averages exclude people earning more than £100,000 a year who have been hit by higher tax.)

Interestingly, given this week's debate, Labour's changes also turn out to have favoured families with "stay at home" mums.

Other things equal, the average one earner household with children was nearly 6% better off in 2010 than they would have been under the old system, whereas, households with children where both couples work were just over 1.2% worse off.

But note this last group still did a lot better than dual earner couples without any children in the house, who were about 4% worse off as a result of the changes Labour brought in.

The upshot is that the coalition is not going to be able to take a lot of money out of the system they inherited without leaving a lot of families worse off.

Put it another way: "family-friendly" deficit cuts on the scale that Mr Osborne believes to be necessary are almost certainly a contradiction in terms.

BBC NEWS  06 Oct 2010    Alternatives to Welfare    Economic Democracy

David Cameron 'sorry' ...

No sorry enough!

In his closing speech to the party conference tomorrow, his first as prime minister, Cameron will try to draw a line under the benefits controversy by offering a robust defence of the need to share the pain of cutting the deficit ...

He will also say:

"For too long we have measured success in tackling poverty by the size of the cheque we give people. We say let us measure success by the chance we give.

"Fairness is not just about who gets help from the state. The other part of the equation is who gives that help through their taxes.

"Fairness means giving people what they deserve – and what people deserve depends on how they behave."

Referring to the plan to cap welfare payments at £26,000 a year for workless households, seen by Tories as one of the great successes of this conference, he will say it is not fair to "take more money from the man who goes out to work long hours each day so the family next door can go on living a life on benefits".

Guardian  05 Oct 2010    Crackdown on Welfare    'Reserve Army'

Tories in turmoil as child benefit backlash gathers strength

Cuts threaten to knock recovery as jobs 'flatline'

Jobs market growth 'slows again'

Cameron faces Tory criticism over child benefit cuts

The Conservative children's minister, Tim Loughton, said the chancellor's move to axe the payments to 1.2 million families might need revising ...

His comments came after criticism from unions and poverty campaigners and a warning from a respected economic thinktank that the cut could "seriously distort" work incentives ...

Officials said the cut-off point had to be aligned with the higher-rate income tax threshold to ensure simplicity and avoid complex means-testing.

But Loughton indicated that it could be revised:

"If there are ways we can look at compensating measures for those genuinely in need that will be looked at in future budgets," he told Channel 4 News.

"If the thresholds need to be adjusted there's plenty of time to look at that."

Seizing on his comments, the shadow work and pensions secretary, Yvette Cooper, said last night:

"The government's unfair attack on child benefit is now unravelling. The chancellor only announced means testing this morning, and already the children's minister has admitted that the thresholds need to be looked at again. They have clearly been taken aback by the reaction of parents across the country.

"George Osborne and David Cameron obviously don't understand what it means for families on middle incomes to lose thousands of pounds a year."

Osborne made the policy, which ends the universal payment of child benefit to all parents, the centrepiece of his own conference speech.

But within hours, an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said some may regard the measure as "unfair" because it favours two-income families over those where one parent stays at home to look after children ...

Guardian  05 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review    Contesting Austerity        

Why the Tories failed

Child benefit withdrawal will mean some worse off after a pay rise

Ending middle-class child benefit is just a start

The next step for Mr Osborne will be to move on to other areas of the welfare system. He should begin by aiming to save more elsewhere within child benefit.

The reforms announced this morning will save £1bn.

But the think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies has suggested aligning the withdrawal of child benefit with child tax credits, which would save £5.5bn and might also be simpler from an administrative point of view.

Second, this should be part of a wider assault on mis-directed benefits to the middle class.

Some 32 per cent of all benefits paid out last year went to people who are wealthier than average, costing £53bn.

Excluding the state pension, 28 per cent of all benefits go to the better-off half of the population, costing £30bn.

Finally, bigger cuts in middle-class welfare should be used as the political counterweight to placing much tougher expectations on claimants of out of work benefits. Such spending ... now costs £80bn-£90bn a year.

Instead of sucking more and more people into the welfare net, the message should be that people who do not need to rely on the state, should not.

So far, the government has been shy about making these arguments. Mr Osborne has shown his political steel in beginning to do so. He should keep pushing.

FT  04 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review    Contesting Austerity    More Haste, Less Speed

Osborne under fire over child benefit cuts for higher earners

Capping benefits (and families?)

Child benefit withdrawal will mean some worse off after a pay rise

Cap brought in on benefit claims

When simplicity trumps fairness

Minister backs high-speed rail to Manchester and Leeds

George Osborne to cap welfare payments

Coalition's infrastructure cuts 'inconsistent' with UK recovery

Child benefit to be scrapped for high earners

End for middle class benefits

Top earners to lose child tax credit benefits

Osborne: cuts must be fast and deep

David Cameron's welfare reform to target middle class