Tim Jones

In 2007 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was in financial crisis. Income from the interest charged on the money it lends had dried-up. During the 2000s, countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Thailand paid off their debts, scarred by the free market economic conditions forced upon them in previous years.

The governments which run the international institution decided to sell 400 tonnes of its gold, and invest the proceeds to get a new income. The gold has just finished being sold, and with prices reaching record highs, the IMF has a windfall of almost $3 billion.

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• Councils fail to protect social care
  In the FT, Nicholas Timmins looks at the Local Government Survey we reported on Saturday. He points out that the LGA headline may be that most councils are trying to protect the vulnerable from the worst of the cuts, that leaves “43 per cent providing no extra protection for social care and 37 doing the same for children’s social care. Four councils said they plan to cut adult social care by more than their other services.”

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• Hundreds of jobs threatened under ‘work’ programme
  PCS reports that Work Programme contractor Working Links has sent redundancy letters to 600 employees.

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Richard Exell

Most Councils plan cuts in Sure Start and library services and one in seven plan to make it harder to get free adult social care a new survey has revealed. The Local Government Association’s 2011 “Budget Survey”, which is sent out to Directors of Finance in English councils found that 83 per cent were planning to make savings in their library services and 63 per cent in Sure Start (mainly by concentrating services on vulnerable families or neighbourhoods, effectively ending the vision of Sure Start as a service whose high standards would be guaranteed by the fact the middle classes also use it.) One in five expect services for young people to be hit harder than the average.

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• Housing benefit changes: Who will be affected?
  An excellent article from the BBC News website, setting out how many people will be affected by forthcoming Housing Benefit cuts and improvements(mainly cuts) and how much they will gain or lose (mainly lose).

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Richard Exell

March, lobby of Parliament, online protest and rally on 11 May.

Disabled people’s benefits, services, jobs and rights are threatened as never before. Cuts to Disability Living Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, and Child Tax Credits for disabled children will have a massive impact on the living standards of disabled people and their families. Cuts to local authority services will undermine disabled people’s human rights. And the unfinished agenda for disability equality will be stalled for as long as the government insists on “no new regulation.”

The Disability Benefits Consortium and the UK Disabled People’s Council have set up the Hardest Hit coalition (full disclosure: the TUC is a supporter) to tell the Government to stop these cuts.

The Hardest Hit website has news, individuals’ stories and facts and figures, but the focus is on campaigning. 

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Sam Royston

In a surprise announcement made in a DWP policy briefing note released at the end of last week, the Government has announced that support for all but the most disabled children, currently provided through the disability element of child tax credit, will be halved under the Universal Credit.  Calculations suggest that the loss could amount to substantially more than £20,000 across the childhood of a disabled child.

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