Sam Royston

25 national organisations including the Children’s Society, the TUC, Barnardo’s and Action for Children have come together to call for a change in the Government’s plans for a substantial cut to welfare support for disabled children under the new “Universal Credit”.

The new system will result in many of these children losing up to £1400 per year (£27 per week) compared to the current system – by the time a disabled child reaches 16, this could cost the family £22,000. In total the Government estimates that 100,000 disabled children would lose out under this change – other estimates suggest the number could be considerably higher.

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Richard Exell

This morning the DWP published a new report on Disability Living Allowance: Growth in the Number of Claimants 2002/03 to 2010/11. Surprise, surprise, the story was leaked briefed in advance to the Mail and the Star and the Sun; and to the Express, who again win the One Notch Prize:

HANDOUTS FOR DISABILITY HAVE SOARED 185%

The disability movement has spent a generation fighting for equal rights; DLA, which compensate for some (but not all) of the extra costs of disability is about levelling the playing-field, not giving us a special advantage. So that word “handouts” is guaranteed to bring out my inner bull that’s just had a tempting glimpse of red handkerchief; but, leaving that aside, how accurate is that figure?

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Richard Exell

Two new pieces of news suggest we’re still in the doldrums. Firstly, yesterday’s monthly figures for new car sales from the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed that new car registrations in July were 3.5% lower than they had been a year before. This is the 13th successive monthly fall and sales in the year-to-date are 6.7% down on last year. The only growth area is in fleet sales, which were up 2% – a reminder that many businesses are sitting on a pile of cash.

The other worry was today’s insolvency statistics.

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Philip Pearson

Government has fallen well short of expectations for its green growth roadmap, with today’s report lacking an economic and employment strategy that would help put the UK on the path to a sustainable recovery. The government is right to identify the shift towards a green economy as an opportunity to boost growth. But the underlying trend of UK carbon emissions means that deep emissions cuts are still required to meet carbon budgets.

Ministers have provided few clues on how to encourage ‘green’ skills or secure our manufacturing base. Our energy intensive industries like steel, aluminium, ceramics and chemicals are still looking for answers.

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Nigel Stanley

Most Touchstone readers will wince every time they hear a minister talking about ‘maxing out the nation’s credit card’. Those of us old enough to remember can hear the direct echoes of Mrs Thatcher’s housewife’s purse, which she used to justify what in retrospect look like quite mild cuts in spending.

Yet this simple narrative has worked for the government. A majority still believe cuts are necessary (even if they want them to be temporary and reject the small state ideology that drives a good part of the cuts/public service “reform” agenda).

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Paul Sellers

“It is a fact that the aggressive cuts Osborne laid out last year are … hampering our economic growth”.

Not my words, but those of Jim Armitage, business correspondent of the Evening Standard – usually rather a fan of Government policy. There are many straws in the wind that suggest that the business community is getting twitchy about the direction of government policy, having belatedly woken up to the fact that public sector cuts will both depress consumer demand and reduce the number of contracts let to the private sector. As this will in turn reduce tax revenues, there is a real danger of that the economy will enter a “vicious circle”.

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Scarlet Harris

Trawling through the 2,200 charities and voluntary organisations facing Local Authority funding cuts listed on the False Economy website and widely reported in the press today, makes for extremely bleak reading.

After school clubs for kids, Christmas lunches for old people, wheelchair loan services, sexual health advisory services, meals on wheels, support services for disabled children, all axed. Welcome to the Big Society.

I was particularly taken aback by the number of women’s sector organisations and violence against women and girls (VAWG) services that have faced cuts.

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Helen Nadin

Lane, Clark and Peacock’s 18th annual survey released today has some interesting – but dispiriting – findings on the pension schemes run for employees of FTSE 100 companies.

Two key findings are the growing shift to defined contribution provision, and the change from RPI to CPI to uprate private sector schemes. The latter has resulted in a significant shift in the value of pension liabilities. The aggregate FTSE 100 pension deficit now stands at £19bn, down from £51bn on the previous year. But, as LCP recognises, this is at the expense of scheme members. If CPI were to average 0.75% per year less than RPI, a pensioner retiring at age 60 on 10,000 per year would see their benefit eroded by nearly 1,200 per year in today’s terms by the time they reach age 75.

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Alice Hood

Research published today by False Economy shows that more than 2,200 charities are facing cuts to their budgets as local councils reduce or withdraw funding.

The research is based on 265 Freedom of Information responses from local councils across England, and shows that charities face a net reduction of £110 million this year. In fact, even this figure is likely to be a significant underestimate, given that a number of large councils did not respond to the FOIs and some are yet to decide exactly where the cuts will fall.

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Richard Exell

The Purchasing Managers’ Index results for manufacturing are seriously bad news. It’s been clear for nearly a year that Plan A’s credibility depends upon the continued success of manufacturing, which has been the one bit of light in the pervading economic gloom. Last month’s Index was disappointing, with Markit, the company that produces the Index, noting a “steep deterioration.”

This month, the Index shows a contraction for the first time in two years, job losses for the first time in more than a year and “near stagnation” in output. The figures for new business – the leading edge of what is a leading indicator – are especially worrying, as they are down for the second month running.

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