Welfare reforms a further blow to families with a disabled child

Under the proposals within the welfare reform bill, disability additions will be cut in half for all but children with very specific needs, such as severe visual impairment or night-time care needs.

This will result in financial support being reduced by over £1,400 per year to families who are likely to have equally high costs.

Family Action has estimated that this cut will result in a loss of benefits of more than £22,000 of support over the childhood of a disabled child.

This is an enormous amount for the households on the lowest income, who are already at significant risk of living in poverty or debt ...

While families currently in receipt of this benefit will have transitional protection against this cut we at Every Disabled Child Matters estimate that this policy will impact on up to 57% of all families with disabled children in the future.

Worryingly this week the government released information that it had previously underestimated the number of families receiving this benefit by 70,000.

This means that 170,000 families will have this benefit immediately frozen in 2013 and potentially cut if there is a change in household circumstance ...

Gdn  16 Sept 2011    Coalition Log    Marginalising the Disabled    Third Meltdown Log    Welfare 'Reform'

Marginalised Home Page

George Osborne given stark warning on cuts' impact

A study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK's leading experts on the public finances, concludes that the chancellor's strategy will result in greater inequality and rising child poverty ...

The IFS analysis, included in a new international study into the impact of the "Great Recession" of 2008-09 on 21 wealthy countries, says the most severe downturn since the interwar years will "cast a very long shadow in the UK", with the poorest 30% of households especially hard hit.

"Declines in living standards look set to continue until at least 2013-14.

"If realised, this would mean that average living standards had not grown in well over 10 years, making it one of the worst decades for changes in living standards since at least the second world war." ...

Gdn  12 Sept 2011    Coalition Log    Falling Living Standards    Inequality    Whither Britain?

Childcare costs put parents in debt

Bosses' bonuses up by 187% since 2002

UK household squeeze at its worst for two years

Wage study shows rich-poor divide

Why the 'squeezed middle' is here to stay

UK households 'face £780 drop in disposable incomes'

If we're lucky, we'll only be 10 per cent poorer

Top tax rate will raise £12.6bn more in revenue, official figures reveal

The 50p tax rate will raise an additional £12.6bn over the next five years even if people choose to leave the country to avoid it, according to the government's own projections which will add to pressure on the Treasury not to scrap higher taxes.

By 2015-16 the 50% tax rate for people earning above £150,000 will bring in £3.2bn more than if the tax rate had stayed at 40% - rising from £1.1bn this year and totalling £12.6bn over the five year period.

Compared with a 45% rate, 50% will bring in an additional £5.3bn ...

Gdn  07 Sept 2011    Coalition Log

Inequality

The 50p tax rate is holding back Britain

How much will the 50p tax rate raise?

50p tax rate a 'temporary measure'

Disabled people fear benefit cut

A survey carried out by the charity Papworth Trust found 86% of disabled people would have to cut down on essentials if their payments were stopped or reduced.

The main area claimants said they would have to scale back their spending was on items such as food and drink, closely followed by utility bills and specialist transport.

Of the 2,200 people surveyed, three-quarters believe the Government is penalising disabled people unfairly ...

Papworth Trust chief executive Adrian Bagg said: "We know that all parts of society are facing cuts. Our survey shows that for 5% of disabled people these cuts would have little or no effect, but given the Government is seeking a 20% reduction, this will mean real-terms cuts that further disadvantage many disabled people.

"The people who participated in this survey have many concerns about the proposed changes, but they are particularly anxious that the new PIP Assessment will be unfair."

Mr Bagg urged the Government to "learn the lessons" of previous benefit reforms and "ensure that if they make this change, the assessment will be fair and the implications clearly explained".

Ind  31 Aug 2011    Is the coalition marginalizing the disabled?    The Third Meltdown

'Unsustainable Burdens'

Knife crime and gang violence on the rise

According to Scotland Yard the number of recorded knife-crime injuries in London went up from 941 to 1,070 in the three months between February and April this year compared with the previous three months; victims in the 13-24 age group injured during knife crime increased by more than 30% between 2008-09 and 2010-11.

Youth services, particularly those that prevent gang violence, have been savaged by local authorities because of government-imposed cuts.

More than £100m was removed from local authority services for young people up to March this year, according to the Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services, which surveyed 41 of their members.

Budget cuts imposed at the start of the financial year averaged 28%, but some local authorities were cutting 70%, 80% or even 100% of youth services, it said.

Almost 3,000 full-time staff who work with youths have been lost.

Universal services such as youth clubs have been hit hardest: 96% of the 41 heads of youth services who responded said club activities would be either reduced or stopped altogether by April next year.

MPs on the education select committee warned parliament last month that "disproportionate budget reductions" could have "dramatic and long-lasting" consequences.

Graham Stuart, the select committee's chairman, said the current situation was "damaging" and an increase in crime was "inevitable".

He said: "Tim Loughton [the children's minister] has said that cuts to children's services are disproportionate and we agree." ...

Gdn  29 July 2011    Coalition Log    Cutting the Deficit    Street Gangs

Thinking the unthinkable

Brilliant blue skies? Or bonkers? Steve Hilton, the prime minister's thinker-in-chief, is a bit of both.

Perhaps the UK could just ignore EU regulations on temporary workers, suggested the T-shirt-clad head of strategy? ...

How about abolishing all government press officers and replacing them with a single blogger per department?

Abolish all consumer rights?

Close all Job Centres?

Then the most toxic: abolish maternity leave in order to encourage employers to take on more women (follow the logic?).

And, finally everyone's favourite: use technology to separate the clouds and bring in more sunshine ...

... there is one gaping flaw in the Government's understanding of the new wave of tech-based entrepreneurialism.

Facebook and Twitter embrace not just this new mood but also a more pronounced sense of equity.

And it is this that is so lacking in Cameron's approach to economic austerity.

The supine bailout of the bankers and the servility towards the Murdochs proved that we are not all in it together.

The pain has been shared out, in varying degrees, among the mainstream population, but not among the very wealthy and the obscenely wealthy.

The reason Hilton's reported remarks about abolishing maternity leave strikes such a nerve is that it reinforces a view that the wealthy can dictate the terms and that deregulation is designed solely for this purpose ...

Ind  29 July 2011    Coalition Log    'Divi' Dave Log    

Cameron's blue-sky thinker has his head in the clouds

Charity cuts: the 'avoidable destruction' of homelessness services

Another roar of pain and anger from the homelessness charity sector ...

... Andrew Redfern, the chief executive of Framework, a Nottinghamshire-based charity ... explains how far services for homeless and vulnerable people have come in the past decade, not least as a result of investment through the Supporting People programme, and how quickly those services will fall apart, now that funding stream has been savaged ...

Chrissy81
15 July 2011 8:06PM

Framework helped me when I was homeless. Their support after they helped me get housed also means I will never become homeless again.

I now work for Framework and it is very clear all the work we do is not just about helping homeless people - it is saving the country money!

We really are keeping people out of prison and out of hospital. We do this by reducing substance misuse, mental health problems, anti-social behaviour etc.

Also, the support is all about trying to ensure that people sustain tenancies, get in to work and hopefully don't need to access support services in future.

I am an example of this.

Framework have drastically changed homelessness in Nottinghamshire over last ten years and these cuts are seriously jeopardising all their good work.

The cuts will only make short-term savings. In the longer term the cost to our country both financially and socially will be devestating.

Gdn  15 July 2011    Coalition Log    Housing Benefit 'Reform'

Marginalised

Framework

Homelessness cuts: what exactly are ministers there for?

Homelessness: charities face 30% funding cuts

First in the cuts firing line: the homeless and socially excluded

Sainsbury's shoppers asked to donate food from their trolleys to poor

Sainsbury's is launching the food donation trial at selected stores from 8-10 July as new research from the food redistribution charity FareShare reveals that 40% of local community projects relying on food donations are struggling to meet demand.

Shoppers will be asked to add an extra item – from a suggested list – to their basket or trolley, and it will then be distributed to local community projects for the homeless and disadvantaged by FareShare.

The scheme is based on one FareShare operates in France, which has attracted a record 13,000 tonnes in one weekend alone.

The Sainsbury's trial is being carried out in 19 stores, including New Cross Gate in London, Garthdee in Aberdeen and Kings Heath in Birmingham.

If successful it could be rolled out across the UK, making it easier for shoppers to donate food regularly.

Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare said:

"At a time of severe economic hardship, we are seeing unprecedented and increasing demand for food donations.

"We are highlighting the issue to encourage the food industry and the public to increase their support." ...

Gdn  07 July 2011    'Big Society'    Coalition Log

Bonuses in the City ... foodbanks are booming

Church-led foodbanks see 50% rise in demand

Food banks feeding needy people around the UK

Job centres to give food vouchers to unemployed

Trussell Trust

The ABC of early years intervention

The passion of the secretary of state for work and pensions (Two babies, one future, 2 July) for early intervention to increase the chances of a disadvantaged child moving out of poverty brings horses bolting and open stable doors to mind.

For too many children disadvantage starts with a mother who cannot afford a healthy diet and might not know enough about the food she needs to give birth to a healthy baby.

International research, headed by the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, has shown that poor maternal nutrition leads to poor cognitive ability, developmental brain disorder and a higher risk of cerebral palsy.

The last government took the point and added the health in pregnancy grant, the baby entitlement of the child tax credit, the toddler entitlement of the child tax credit and the child trust fund, but it too should have started before women conceive by increasing their unemployment benefit of £53.45 a week.

The present government abolished all these benefits, so reducing the income during pregnancy and the first year of a baby's life by £1,735, as calculated by Family Action.

An unemployed woman aged 18-25, before and during pregnancy, has an income of just £53.45 a week.

This will be more vulnerable to rent arrears from housing benefit caps, still vulnerable to unregulated loan sharks, and is likely to be overtaken by the escalating weekly cost of a healthy diet and domestic fuel with the annual uprating now pegged to the RPI.

The public health white paper only mentions food when abolishing the Food Standards Agency and never mentions debt, another source of mental illness.

Rev Paul Nicolson

Chair, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust

Guardian  03 July 2011    Coalition Log    Welfare

Zacchaeus 2000

The mental health ward at Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Unit is to be closed

Staff on the mental health ward, which serves young prisoners who are suffering a mental health crisis or at risk of or who have attempted suicide, are NHS staff although the centre is within the prison itself.

Lancaster Farms houses some of the most troubled and damaged young men in the North of England.

Many of them are care leavers and most have come from abusive backgrounds.

They have committed or are on remand for serious crimes. About 20 jobs will go.

Gdn  27 June 2011    Coalition Log    Cutting the Deficit    Prison & Probation    'Prozac Nation'

Southern Cross staff asked to sign away employment rights

Southern Cross ... is struggling to stave off insolvency and has agreed in principle to hand back hundreds of its 750 homes to landlords because it can no longer afford to pay annual rent of £230m.

The company is cutting 3,000 staff and attempting to impose a new contract of employment on workers, many of whom already work 12-hour shifts and are paid little more than the minimum wage of £5.90 an hour.

Southern Cross's proposals ... include staff being temporarily laid off if the company deems there is insufficient work, pay and hours being cut or increased by 20% each way, employees carrying out duties other than caring (such as cleaning and cooking) and in some cases agreeing to opt out of the European working time directive that limits the amount they can work to 48 hours a week.

The plans also propose that carers should be prepared to work in different homes "within a reasonable area" ...

One carer from Yorkshire ... said:

" ... They will be moving us around like agency staff. If I go to a home which is further away it will take longer and they are not going to pay for my petrol."

Another carer claimed Southern Cross had refused to call in agency workers when staff called in sick, which meant on some occasions just two carers were left looking after 50 residents ...

Gdn  16 June 2011    Coalition Log    FYB Log    Outsourcing    Southern Cross

CBI criticises Cameron for backing down over public service reforms

Homelessness on the rise as recession and cuts bite

BTW, Mr Shapps, your government has cut the funding for CABs [ME]

Homelessness is rising dramatically for the first time in years in the UK as the effects of the recession are felt ...

The government data show that 26,400 people approached a local council for housing help in the first three months of 2011, a rise of 23% compared with the same period last year.

Less than half of these applications were successful ...

Some of the biggest rises in homelessness applications came in London boroughs: substantial rises were recorded in Bromley (99%), Hammersmith and Fulham (92%), Islington (88%), and Haringey (83%), in the first three months of 2011.

The figures also revealed an increase in homeless families being housed in bed and breakfast accommodation ...

The housing minister, Grant Shapps, admitted the figures underline "how the recession has brought difficult times for lots of people".

But he said homelessness remained a government priority and urged people at risk of losing their homes to contact a Citizens Advice bureau ...

Gdn  10 June 2011    Coalition Log    FYB Log    Ponzi Housing Market

Statutory Homelessness: March Quarter 2011 England

Abused teenager appeals to Cameron over the closure of children's homes

Essex county council, which is cutting its overall budget by £98m this year, is set to close all seven of its homes, leading to redundancies for up to 119 staff.

Children will be moved into "alternative placements".

It was this threat that prompted the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to write to David Cameron.

"I am worried and scared about my home being taken away from me," he wrote.

"I come from a background of physical and emotional neglect and have had 15 foster placements before settling [in a children's home] and in my view there is a need for consistent residential care ...

Last year more than 10% of children in care were moved three times or more as placements broke down.

Figures show that 1,200 children had between five and nine placements during 2010, while 130 had more than 10 ...

Gdn  04 June 2011    FYB Log    Has the coalition abandoned children?

Axe council tax breaks on second homes

Tax breaks for second homeowners should be scrapped and the money ploughed into tackling the UK's housing crisis, according to a leading charity.

Councils can currently reduce council tax for second homeowners by up to 50%, an option offered by one in five local authorities.

Four in five offer the minimum discount of 10%.

Taking Stock, a report by Shelter, claims that ending the discount for the UK's 252,000 second homes would raise up to £42m a year.

Second home ownership has grown dramatically since the 1990s, particularly in rural and coastal areas such as Cornwall, Norfolk and Cumbria, where some claim it pushes up house prices, making property unaffordable for local people.

"The council tax discount is effectively a tax break for people with second homes which often lie empty for large parts of the year," said Shelter's chief executive, Campbell Robb.

"Enabling councils to charge the full rate of council tax, or higher, would mean they could raise vital revenue that could be used to deliver affordable housing for local people." ...

Obs  10 Apr 2011

'Taking Stock'

Charity begins at home - food parcels for eastern Europe and Devon

Across the UK, the Trussell Trust has helped 60,000 people in the last financial year, compared with 41,000 during the previous 12-month period.

Most of its food banks are in cities but the trust is seeing an increase in the need for its aid in the countryside.

In Okehampton, jobs have been shed at three of the town's employers, including a dairy company and factories making chocolate and desserts.

Unemployment has leapt from under 2% to almost 12%.

Councillor Mike Davies, who also works at the food bank, said:

"For many people in this town at the moment there is simply no money coming in. How are they going to pay the rent or the mortgage? How are they going to live? There is a mood of genuine fear in the town at the moment." ...

Guardian  14 Mar 2011

Anger at the banks is justified ... King

Mervyn King today claimed the fall in households' living standards was the fault of the financial services sector and he expressed sympathy that innocent families paying the price.

"The people whose jobs were destroyed were in no way responsible for the excesses of the financial sector and the crisis that followed," he told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee ...

The people who are now suffering "did not get bonuses of the scale people in the financial sector got". The financial crisis may have occurred two years ago but, as austerity measures kick in, "the cost is now being felt", he said.

It remains "a big political problem", he added: "I'm surprised the real anger hasn't been greater than it has." ...

The Governor also expressed concern about the legislation being enacted to give regulators greater powers on bank supervision.

He said the Bank would have preferred a new Act rather than amendments to the existing law ...

Telegraph  01 Mar 2011

King says living standards may never recover

Defaults on credit cards hit more than £1 billion

Why George's ski trip was just the start of the slippery slope

The VAT increase is the first instalment in what amounts to the largest peace time tax hike in British history.

Those at the bottom of the pile face cuts in housing benefit, disability living allowance, council tax benefit and other welfare payment s over the next year or two.

But the pain will also be felt across so-called "middle England".

In April workers will face higher national insurance contributions – an extra 1 per cent taken from their wages for most, a rise in income tax in all but name.

The Government will also deliver a much-needed boost to Lib Dem morale, and the party’s progressive credentials, with the starting threshold for income tax raised by £1,000 to about £7,500.

Then again, the Chancellor will make middle England – broadly defined – pay dearly for this, as the basic and higher rate tax thresholds will be reduced to compensate, on top of the NI rise: an additional 700,000 people will be dragged into the 40 per cent tax band.

Factor in changes to tax credits and benefits, especially child benefit, and the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies believes that the changes will cost average families – those who earn £23,000 a year after tax – about £500 a year by 2012.

For those households with teenagers receiving the educational maintenance allowance, abolished this year, the effect will be still greater ...

Soon will come an even stronger test. Pay rises are lagging far behind inflation ...

Independent  05 Jan 2011    Cutting the Deficit    Inequality

VAT at 20%: A very deliberate choice

'Savage' cuts to youth spending could rob a generation of chances

Cuts leave elderly stuck in hospital

Robert Chote: Post Budget Briefing

Savage cuts hit lifeline services used by the vulnerable

Council support services used by a million disadvantaged people will have budgets slashed by up to two-thirds in next four years ...

A bleak assessment by the National Housing Federation, which represents 1,200 social housing providers in England, suggests that women fleeing domestic violence, pensioners who rely on support to help them live at home and people with mental health problems are among those who will lose out most as councils allocate their budgets for the next 12 months.

The assessment has raised concerns that, contrary to government assurances, the cuts will exacerbate the gap between rich and poor.

The federation says some "lifeline services" face closure as local authorities look to make big savings over the next four years.

In the comprehensive spending review, chancellor George Osborne announced a 12% cut in Supporting People funding, an annual £1.6bn the government allocates to local authorities for the provision of services used by more than a million vulnerable people.

However, because the money has been subsumed in a general funding allocation from central government and is no longer ring-fenced, councils are for the first time free to spend it on other services, resulting in what the federation describes as "big cuts" in Supporting People projects ...

Guardian  26 Dec 2010    Cutting the Deficit

The philosophical significance of UK-Uncut

UK-Uncut challenges the roots of the coalition's austerity programme: without closing tax loopholes, it is an atack solely on the public space, and the weakest in our society. It also confirms that the coalition does not believe in the concept of society, despite Cameron's bogus assertion that 'we are all in it together'!

Consider for a moment the real implications of the proposition that no act can justly be criticized unless it is against the law.

The implication is that law is a full and total expression of moral values. Only totalitarians think that.

Everybody else recognises that, while certainly informed by morality, the function of the law is to provide a framework within which civil society can function and can debate the rights and wrongs of actions.

And it would be a cold and brittle society that relied on the law for the expression and support of all values, and that could not tolerate citizens sorting things out between themselves.

Just as in sport we recognize that something can be within the rules yet still condemned as unsporting, so too most people recognize that behaviour can be wrong even when it isn’t actually illegal.

In fact only one social group regularly seeks to justify actions simply by insisting that they don’t break the formal rules.

And that group is the one that rules us ...

openDemocracy  17 Dec 2010    Contesting Austerity    Moral Indifference Log    Tax Dodgers

UK-Uncut

George Osborne plans to cut levy on banks' balance sheets

Treasury considers cutting proposed levy after learning it could raise an unexpectedly high £3.9bn a year ...

Richard Murphy, director of Tax Research UK and an advisor to the TUC, concurred.

"It is designed to be modest ... £2.5bn is a modest charge especially if set against bank bonuses of £7bn."

The Centre for Economic and Business Research has forecast that £7bn will be paid out in bonuses this year, with about half of that being paid in personal taxes.

In last month's comprehensive spending review, Osborne said that the bank levy needed to be set in such way to extract the "maximum sustainable" tax revenue.

City sources said the move was recognition that if the levy was set too high banks might be driven offshore ...

Observer  14 Nov 2010

Bleating bankers need to find a new tone to persuade us of their value

The banks' moans fall into three categories: bonuses, tax and immigration. Fiercest of the bugbears, as ever, is pay – particularly European Union stipulations that 80% of bankers' bonuses must be paid in shares, deferred for three or four years.

Investment banks claim this makes it hard to persuade their staff to move to London – and that it does little to discourage risky behaviour.

Finance hardliners still feel that the entire debate is rooted in envy.

One insisted: "We can live in a world where 'if I can't have it, you can't have it'. Or we can live in a world where we try to make the cake as big as possible."

marukun
14 November 2010 12:56AM

Neither the bankers nor the Tory party seem to understand that they have pretty much destroyed the UK economy and meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on (to China, India and Brazil).

UK financial services is a laughing stock outside the UK. Their only business these days is skimming of profits from the foreign exchange transactions required by global trade, bidding up commodity prices (including our food) by speculation, tricking pension funds into buying complex, rigged derivatives and helping companies avoid taxes (a Barclays speciality).

Any yet we are meant to embrace this activity as a great British business?

Paying bankers more bonuses is nothing but throwing good money after bad.

They have nothing constructive to offer the economies of Europe or the US - they have proved that by misdirecting our savings by the trillions into dud investments like American mortgages. For God's sake, in the US they cant even get the basic paperwork right as the US foreclosure crisis shows.

The government should be working to get these parasites off our backs and putting the little money the country has left to something useful.

Lets not just leave it to the students to show this country what they think of the present government.

gothicform
14 November 2010 2:50AM

It seems that the banks like HSBC, Barclays et al seem to forget they are PLCs.

They exist not to funnel bonuses to their staff but to funnel dividends to their shareholders.

It feels increasingly like shareholders of banks are the ones stumping up capital for what are effectively partnerships - just no one ever bought us out.

ALL the banks could cut their bonuses by half, still pay people obscene sums and shareholder dividends would be able to go through the roof.

Of course, that would mean banks actually following through their obligations as PLCs... fat chance there.

It seems apparent to me, as a shareholder, they are out to screw everyone be it the taxpayer or the investor simply to help enrich their staff even more.

Observer  14 Nov 2010    Bonus Culture    Cutting the Deficit

Bleating bankers

Offshore tax evasion crackdown expected to raise £10bn

A Treasury official said: "These agreements, by allowing us to get information from tax havens, means British tax authorities are gaining complete access to details of bank accounts. We are discovering much more than we had assumed we would."

The Treasury said it could not predict whether individuals would be prosecuted as a result of the discoveries, but said in clear cases of tax evasion it is likely to lead to court action.

The cash is being raised through a mixture of imposing tax on accounts and by demanding back payments of unpaid tax that should have been paid to the Treasury.

Osborne said: "We are in this together and that includes those who try to evade tax. We are in the process of striking a deal with Switzerland and more will follow. This will raise many billions of pounds that the previous government failed to do. This is tough but fair."

sam007 13 November 2010 12:39AM

"The officials said that the Cayman Islands, one of the biggest offshore tax havens, was not among them"

Under British law, hedge funds are able to register in the Caymans—and make their deals tax-free through the islands.

This is allowed even though most of those running the funds work thousands of miles away, mainly in central London.

If you delve into the public records in the Caymans—as researchers for the Channel 4 Dispatches programme I have just produced did—you will find lists containing many hedge fund names, many of them based in London.

Some of the names of owners of these funds can also be found on the electoral commission’s record of Conservative party donors.

Indeed, just a few weeks before the government U-turn on the Caymans, a number of British hedge-fund owners handed over large sums of money to the Conservative party, in the run-up to the general election.

Some had also given up to six-figure sums to George Osborne to pay for his office in opposition. No laws have been broken.

But would it be getting a little carried away to wonder if they were all in it together?

Guardian  13 Nov 2010    Cutting the Deficit    Tax Dodgers

Tax avoidance: the Cayman question

Labour market participation of households – November 2010

Workless households across the UK

In January to December 2009, there were three areas across the UK where more than three out of every ten households had no one in work.

These were:

Liverpool (32.1 per cent)

Nottingham (31.1 per cent)

Glasgow City (31.0 per cent)

Over the same period for the UK as a whole, 18.7 per cent of households had no one in work.

There were large variations across the country with the lowest percentages in:

Bedfordshire (9.2 per cent)

Surrey (10.9 per cent)

Inverness and Nairn and Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey (11.0 per cent).

Changes on year

This was the second consecutive year that Liverpool came out on top with the highest percentage of workless households, and was an increase of 1.2 percentage points on a year earlier.

Glasgow City was also in the top three in 2008 and increased by 1.3 percentage points.

For the UK as a whole the percentage of workless households increased by 0.9 percentage points.

ONS  04 Nov 2010    Is capitalism the only game in town?    'Reserve Army'

Third of Liverpool households are jobless

Blackburn and Darwen council slashes budget by one third

While town hall budgets around country are expected to fall by 25%, those in deprived areas look set to be hit harder ...

Blackburn with Darwen council in Lancashire announced that it had to find cuts of 36% rather than 25% and, although local authorities have been urged to spread the pain over four years, Blackburn says over half of its total £48m savings target will have to be delivered next year, in 2011-12.

"The £12m additional cut is to grants we receive because we are one of the most deprived areas of the country," said Blackburn with Darwen's chief executive Graham Burgess.

"This will hit local communities across the borough hard and we need to prepare for difficult decisions to come.

"Whilst we are looking at a number of opportunities for staff such as voluntary redundancies and early retirements as well as deleting vacant posts it is unlikely we are going to be able to avoid compulsory redundancies given these are very difficult times we face."

Ministers had warned against this "front-loading" of cuts ...

But analysts say that Blackburn, in common with other councils in more deprived areas, have little choice because they have been highly reliant on areas based grants – packets of money issued by central government departments which recognise and are meant to address specific deprivation needs, from family breakdown to crime.

Under Osborne's plans these grants will be scrapped on 1 April ...

Guardian  28 Oct 2010    Cutting the Deficit

Spending cuts: bigger and faster than expected in deprived areas

Spending cuts 'risk 1m UK jobs'

The PwC report put the total number of job losses arising form the public sector spending cuts - including knock-on effects in the private sector - at about 943,000.

And it said the output of private firms may fall by £46bn per year by 2014-15.

PwC chief economist John Hawksworth said the predicted levels of job losses would be a drag on the pace of the economic recovery "but should not derail it altogether".

He added that increased labour market flexibility - including people working fewer hours or for lower wages - may lead to fewer job losses ...

BBC NEWS  13 Oct 2010    Autumn Spending Review

CBI leader calls for bank bonuses 'ceasefire' as cutbacks bite

Richard Lambert, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), called on banks yesterday to agree a "global ceasefire" on bonuses, warning that the impact of a string of multimillion-dollar "transfers" of star traders could be "toxic in the extreme" ...

Mr Lambert said:

"The political costs of failing to agree a global ceasefire are likely to be substantial.

"It won't be enough to say that without a level playing field around the world, nothing can be done.

"Carrying on with business as normal would seem arrogant and out of touch, and further erode public trust."

Mr Lambert's remarks came just days after a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) forecast that City institutions planned to spend £7bn on bonuses this year, which helped to reignite the furore over the issue and led to fresh accusations of banks indulging in "casino capitalism" ...

Independent  12 Oct 2010    Commission on Banking    Bonus Culture    Fractional Reserve Banking

Boris Johnson warns banks on bonuses

CBI wants law on strikes tightened as strife looms

Refer to Clause 6 of the Washington Consensus.

The CBI will today launch a campaign for the biggest overhaul of trade union legislation since Margaret Thatcher confronted militant workers in the Eighties.

The employers' group will call for a series of reforms to the law, amid concern amongst businesses that the forthcoming public spending review could trigger a wave of strikes.

The CBI will argue that the public mood is implacably against strikes and that employment legislation needs to be updated in order to reflect the way labour relations have developed over the past 20 years.

The move reflects a hardening of attitudes towards industrial action following a series of disputes in which employers have turned to the courts to prevent staff going on strike. Workers at British Airways, Network Rail and Royal Mail have all had plans to strike thwarted in this way.

"Strikes should always be the last resort, and in most cases common sense prevails and negotiation wins the day," said John Cridland, the CBI's deputy director-general ...

Independent  04 Oct 2010    Corporate State

Boris Johnson: we need new laws to stop wave of strikes

CBI calls for tougher legislation on right to strike

The distributional effect of tax and benefit
reforms to be introduced between June 2010 and April 2010

Executive Summary

The Chancellor claimed in his Budget speech that the June 2010 Budget was a 'progressive Budget'.

Initial analysis of this claim showed that this was not true if measures announced in the Budget were analysed in isolation, or if their effects were considered over the longer term.

Furthermore, HM Treasury analysis (as well as our own, in our post-Budget briefing) of the distributional effect of Budget measures did not include the effects of some benefit changes whose effects were difficult to allocate precisely to households.

These measures represent £4.1 billion of the £11 billion of welfare cuts announced in the emergency Budget.

In this paper we attempt to allocate the effects of these changes to housing benefit, Disability Living Allowance and tax credits to households.

We do this by making assumptions about the impact of changes to Disability Living Allowance and tax credits, and by using analysis published since the Budget by the Government on the impact of the changes to housing benefit.

Inevitably, though, these estimates will be less precise than those obtained directly from our tax and benefit microsimulation model.

Our analysis shows that the overall effect of the new reforms announced in the June 2010 Budget is regressive, whereas the tax and benefit reforms announced by the previous Government for introduction between June 2010 and April 2014 are progressive.

Low-income households of working age lose the most from the June 2010 Budget reforms because of the cuts to welfare spending.

Those who lose the least are households of working age without children in the upper half of the income distribution.

This is because they do not lose out from cuts in welfare spending and are the biggest beneficiaries from the increase in the income tax personal allowance.

The biggest change to welfare policy in the June 2010 Budget in fiscal terms was the decision to link benefits with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI) or Rossi index from April 2011.

1. This is very likely to mean less generous benefits in the years ahead.

The savings from linking to a lower index will compound over time.

The change is predicted to save the Government £1.2 billion in 2011, rising to £5.8 billion in 2014-15.

...

Conclusion

It is clear that the measures introduced in the June 2010 Budget are regressive overall.

Once we consider all reforms to be introduced by April 2014, the cash losses are smallest for the seventh, eighth and ninth income decile groups, and are very similar for all of the bottom seven expenditure decile groups.

The progressive nature of the pre-announced measures is not sufficient to offset this, so the overall package of tax and benefit reforms is also slightly regressive, at least within the bottom nine income decile groups.

The biggest losers from the June 2010 Budget are low income households of working age, while better off working-age households without children lose the least.

Low-income pensioners are less affected than other poor groups from the welfare cuts in the Budget, but richer pensioners lose more than richer households of working age from the Budget as they do not benefit from the increased personal allowance.

The biggest change to benefit policy in the June 2010 Budget in terms of the long-run saving to the government was the decision to link benefits with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI) or Rossi index from April 2011.

This is very likely to mean less generous benefits in the years ahead.

The Government argued that the CPI is a better measure of inflation than the indices to which benefits are currently linked because the way it is calculated allows for the fact consumers are able to protect themselves from price changes by substituting towards relatively cheaper good, and because the goods and services it covers better reflect the "inflation experience" of households receiving benefits.

We find the first of these arguments to be sound whereas the second is more questionable.

IFS  2010    Back to 1931 with George Osborne    Growing Inequalities with Neoliberalism

What are the links between shame and poverty?

BoE policymaker turns gloom merchant

Emergency Budget ‘will hit poor hardest’

Poor families bear brunt of coalition's austerity drive

Child poverty 'will rise as cuts hit families'

Budget hits families and pensioners twice as hard

Budget hits the poorest hardest

Living 'costs at least £14,400' for a single person

Benefits sanction proposed for addicts

I've been labouring - wrongly it seems - under the delusion that it was bankers who got us up 5h1t creek, not people on benefits.

Drug addicts who refuse treatment could have their welfare benefits withdrawn, it was reported today.

It comes amid government plans for wider shake-up of the welfare system to help save billions of pounds.

The Labour government planned a series of pilot schemes this year to help drug users kick their habits and return to work.

They included applying sanctions to addicts who failed to attend treatment awareness programmes, and increased powers for the criminal justice system to help identify problem drug users not in treatment ...

Martin Barnes, chief executive of charity DrugScope, said there is no evidence to suggest the idea would work as he raised concerns it could breach medical principles.

"The benefit system can and indeed does have a very important role in terms of advice and support to encourage people both to access treatment and employment," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"But we seriously question both the fairness and the effectiveness of actually using the stick of compulsion - benefit sanctions - to link a requirement to undergo medical treatment with a condition of receipt of benefit."

Mr Barnes said there is "absolutely no evidence" that would work for a "vulnerable and often marginalised group".

He added: "Also, we have to bear in mind that under the principles that are enshrined in the NHS Constitution, medical intervention should be therapeutic, consensual, confidential - and I just don't see that's compatible with using the benefits system to require people to undergo a complex form of drug treatment intervention."

Independent  20 Aug 2010    Crackdown on Welfare

Drug addict benefit withdrawal considered

Treasury plans 'will cut off 400,000 of society's most vulnerable'

Fund that provides accommodation for pensioners, victims of domestic violence, and the homeless, threatened with 40% cuts ...

More than 400,000 vulnerable people, including pensioners and victims of domestic violence, could lose their homes and see care entitlement scrapped if the Treasury carries out its threat to lop 40% from a £1.6bn government support programme, campaigners warned today.

The National Housing Federation (NHF), which represents England's housing associations, said that the "Supporting People" budget, which aims to allow the disadvantaged to lead independent lives and is paid through local authorities, is likely to face substantial cuts in the upcoming spending review.

The cash, which had previously been ringfenced, could see a range of the country's poorest groups affected by shelters closing and caring support services shutdown.

The federation says this would be ultimately self-defeating as some of the most needy people in society – those with learning difficulties and ex-offenders with a range of social issues – would simply be thrust into the NHS, social services and the criminal justice system ...

Guardian  20 Aug 2010    Crackdown on Welfare

N.H.F.

Angry and insecure – the renting Britons with no hope of buying a home

House prices dominate headlines but, with a lack of affordable property, a growing number of Britons will never own a home and face a lifetime in the unregulated rented sector ...

... 30 years after the first council tenants bought their own homes, the rented housing sector is in disarray and those trapped in it are increasingly frustrated and angry.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) warns today that the "golden age of home ownership" is coming to an end. In the most expensive parts of the country, lenders are demanding deposits of £40,000 for even the cheapest properties – requiring a level of savings that most renters could only dream of.

In its first few months in government, the coalition has delivered one major housing reform after another – from plans to cut down on "garden-grabbing" to crackdowns on housing benefit and the unexpected announcement by the prime minister that council tenants would no longer be guaranteed a right to lifetime occupancy.

It is against that backdrop of upheaval that the government is being urged to turn its attention to the needs of the millions who are renting and may be doing so for the rest of their lives.

Campaigners and experts point to government figures that show 44% of all privately rented homes are classified as "non-decent" – a far higher level than for owner-occupied houses (32%) and social rented homes (26).

They also highlight the plight of the "in-betweens" – low-paid workers unlikely to be offered council housing but with little chance of buying a home ...

Observer  15 Aug 2010    Ponzi Housing Market    We are NOT all in it together

Private renter numbers rise by 1m since 2005

Landlord regulation proposals scrapped

Homeownership – not renting – at heart of government housing strategy

Sir Philip Green to conduct external review of coalition's spending cuts

Government enlists fashion chain billionaire to head team of officials in Cabinet Office and Treasury ...

Guardian  12 Aug 2010    Corporate State Britain    Tax Dodgers    Wealth Log

Unions hit out at appointment of Sir Philip Green to Whitehall spending review role

The rewards of tax avoidance

Playground plans shelved under government spending cuts

Coalition makes cuts to £235m Playbuilder scheme intended to create 3,500 community playgrounds across England ...

Guardian  11 Aug 2010    Back to 1931 with George Osborne    

Fox reopens Trident budget row with Osborne

Chancellor's cheerleaders learn austerity will hurt them too

Youth unemployment rising in most regions

Although the economy returned to growth at the end of last year, long-term youth unemployment is up more than a fifth on a year ago, according to the TUC's analysis of Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) data ...

Guardian  11 Aug 2010    Youth Unemployment

Youth unemployment for two years or more soars by 42pc

Bonuses are up – so the economy must be doing well, right?

We're all in it together?

It is only in mahogany-panelled boardrooms that things are looking up ...

Guardian  11 Aug 2010

Growing Inequality    Is capitalism the only game in town?    Pawns or Players?    Wealth Log

Company bosses enjoy £500,000 pay increases

Corporate pay Britain

'Fat cats' still have some slimming to do

How incentive bar was set so low that executives could hardly fail

Older workers 'trapped in long-term unemployment'

Youth unemployment for two years or more soars by 42pc

Youth unemployment rising in most regions

15,000 justice ministry jobs at risk, claims union

The Public and Commercial Services Union says 15,000 of the department's 80,000 jobs are at risk ...

BBC NEWS  10 Aug 2010    Back to 1931 with George Osborne

Prison-building programme in doubt

Ministry of Justice job cuts put the public at risk

Ministry of Justice staff warned of big job cuts

Ministry of Justice faces £2bn cuts

PM offers reassurance over benefit cheat plans

He added:

"In the end, government can only do so much. We also need parents bringing up their children properly, we need citizens behaving responsibly and we need people taking responsibility for themselves for a sense that it is morally wrong to claim money you are not entitled to.

"We need that sense back in our national life as we grapple with this deficit and try to build a more responsible society."

Independent  10 Aug 2010     Guardian  10 Aug 2010     Guardian  10 Aug 2010

Crackdown on Welfare    Welfare to Workfare

Information Commissioner to discuss plans to use bounty hunters against benefit cheats

Welfare reform: will IDS walk?

Credit agencies are no way to catch benefit cheats

Austerity cuts prompt Southern Cross warning

Care homes group is latest private company to suffer ...

Guardian  09 Aug 2010

Corporate Public 'Services'    Back to 1931 with George Osborne    Care of the Elderly    'Putting People First'

Debts that threaten the elderly and vulnerable

High cost of borrowing may be the legacy of the credit crunch

Interest rates may have fallen but households are finding the cost of borrowing is rising – and may remain high ...

Guardian  09 Aug 2010

Banking Commission    Fractional Reserve Banking    Inequality    Is capitalism the only game in town?

Cable fears banks are still 'structurally dangerous'

Every church should consider a foodbank

This week Steve Chalke, a UN special advisor and founder of Oasis, Stop the Traffik and Faithworks, told Trussell Trust Director Chris Mould that every church should consider having a foodbank ...

The Trussell Trust   06 August 2010    Crackdown on Welfare

Britons on the breadline

Cameron pledges to protect vulnerable

Fund to ease impact of immigration scrapped by stealth

Government quietly abandons Gordon Brown's £50m pot for councils to ease pressure on housing, schools and hospitals ...

Guardian  06 Aug 2010    Back to 1931 with Dave 'n Nick    Global Labour Market

Premier Foods signals end to final salary pensions

Premier Foods chief executive Robert Schofield ... has finally bowed to investor pressure and told pension trustees and unions he wants to ditch the group's gold-plated retirement scheme ...

Guardian     Pawns or Players?    

Council homes for life could go, says Cameron

Mr Cameron said the government was investing in social housing, but added there was "a bigger question here", which was how to make sure people were able to move through the housing chain ...

BBC NEWS  03 Aug 2010    Crackdown on Welfare    Ponzi Housing Market

Liberal Democrats reject Cameron plan ...

Housing policy isn't sexy, but ...

Cameron announces plan to end lifetime council tenancies

We want to work – but government would rather cut costs than help us

Rather than helping disability claimants into work, it is cheaper to cut benefits and set them up to fail in a tough labour market ...

Guardian     Crackdown on Welfare    'Reserve Army'    

Remploy

Welfare reforms are 'onslaught on the vulnerable'

The National Housing Federation (NHF) claimed the plan to impose a cap on housing benefit payments amounted to an "onslaught on the vulnerable", which would cost more than 900,000 low-paid people an average of £624 a year – forcing them into debt or homelessness ...

Independent  01 Aug 2010    Crackdown on Welfare    'Reserve Army'

Big earners are still safe in their glass towers

The FSA may talk as if it's getting tough on the City, but it seems it has already run out of steam ...

Guardian  29 July 2010    Commission on Banking    Fractional Reserve Banking    Wealth Log

Fresh bonus fears as bank profits rise

Banks ignore pleas and cut loans to the real economy again

Almost 3,000 City staff took home more than £1m last year

Duncan Smith shakes up benefits in bid to cut costs and increase job incentives

Work and pensions secretary, under pressure to cut budget, sets out three reform options ...

Guardian  29 July 2010    Crackdown on Welfare

750,000 risk losing homes in south-east

IDS

Welfare

Life expectancy gap 'wider than in Great Depression'

The health inequality gap in Britain is greater than it was during the post-World War I slump and the Great Depression ...

BBC NEWS  23 July 2010    Inequality

Bonuses for senior Home Office staff amid pay freeze

Hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonuses are to be paid to Home Office staff amid a public sector pay freeze ...

BBC NEWS  21 July 2010    Bonus Culture