Cuts Watch: Welfare

Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #400: The Hardest Hit

1st April 2011 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Welfare

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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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #316: Housing Benefit cuts and older people

19th November 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Welfare

Richard Exell

Age UK has said that it fears that the Housing Benefit reforms will hit up to 80,000 older people. The UK’s leading charity for older people has said that it has particular concerns about the Government’s strategy of using HB cuts to force tenants to negotiate lower rents from their landlords won’t suit older people, who may choose to cut back on essentials like food and heating, rather than lose their homes.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts watch # 288:Consumer champ axed

14th October 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Environment, Cuts Watch: Families, Cuts Watch: Welfare

Philip Pearson

Despite the Coalition’s promise to “protect consumers, particularly the most vulnerable,” they will abolish Consumer Focus, our fuel poverty champion, saving £5m. Today’s fuel poverty figures from DECC show that 4m households in England can’t keep their homes warm. It’s worth remembering that Consumer Focus has achieved big wins for consumers –such as a £70 million energy bill refund, and cash ISA reforms saving over £15 million a year. CF has saved consumers around £500 million over the last two years – 100 times its government funding!

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #283: Cold Weather Payments?

13th October 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Families, Cuts Watch: Welfare

Nicola Smith

During PMQs, the Prime Minister has today failed to provide an assurance that Cold Weather Payments will be retained at the rate of £25 a week (their value for the last two years). Direct Gov is still reporting that the £25 a week rate will be paid this winter. Should this rate be reduced, those entitled (broadly speaking, only the poorest households in the UK) will have less than a month to plan for the amendment.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #280: More child benefit cuts

12th October 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Welfare

Nicola Smith

Child Benefit has already been frozen for three years, and cut for higher rate tax payers. But today Ian Duncan Smith has announced that it will be subject to further ‘changes’ next week. Presuming that the Government isn’t about to announce that previous decisions are being reversed, it looks as if further cuts are on the way.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #278: Benefits for disabled people

11th October 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Families, Cuts Watch: Social care, Cuts Watch: Welfare

Nicola Smith

New research undertaken by Demos, and funded by Scope and the Barrow Cadbury Trust, has found that the Government’s proposed welfare reforms will see 3.5 million disabled people lose over £9.2 billion of support by 2015 pushing them further into poverty and increasing social exclusion.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #262: Support with Mortgage Interest Payments

28th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Welfare

Nicola Smith

Channel 4′s Cuts Check has picked up on the Government’s recent cut to the rate at which Support with Mortgage Interest will be paid.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #245: Housing Benefit and disabled children

15th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Families, Cuts Watch: Welfare

Richard Exell

Contact a Family, the charity for families with disabled children, has raised concerns that the 2011 changes to Housing Benefit will hit disabled children especially hard.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #224: Temporary staff at Jobcentre Plus

6th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Welfare

Nicola Smith

Welfare to work blogs are starting to report that ‘most’ of the 16,000 temporary Jobcentre Plus staff, who were recruited to deal with increased demand for services at the start of the recession, will now not have their contracts renewed.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #215: Youth Justice Board

23rd August 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Social care, Cuts Watch: Welfare

Nicola Smith

Community Care are reporting that the Youth Justice Board (YJB) is to be axed.

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