The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Public spending
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29/07/2020
The origins of modern welfare, published 2010, now on open access
The origins of modern welfare was published in July 2010, by Peter Lang. The publisher and I agreed at the time of publication that our contractual agreement would expire after ten years, and the rights would revert to me. I am taking the opportunity now to make this work freely available, on a Creative Commons licence.
The book contains modern English versions of two documents from the early sixteenth century, which have some claim to be the earliest ever studies made in the field of social policy. The De Subventione Pauperum, by Juan-Luis Vives, was a commissioned academic report, written for the Senate of Bruges, and published in 1525. It represents, a watershed in thinking about governance, social responsibility and public policy. In Book 2 it proposes a comprehensive civic organisation of welfare services.
Category: News stories -
29/03/2020
Impact of Covid-19 on food access
The Food Foundation has just released the results of a YouGov survey on the impact of Covid-19 on food access. (See here ) They found that;
“More than 1.5 million adults in Britain say they cannot obtain enough food, 53% of NHS workers are worried about getting food, and half of parents with children eligible for Free School Meals have not received any substitute meals to keep their children fed, despite government assurances that they would provide food vouchers or parcels. This means that 830,000 children could be going without daily sustenance on which they usually rely.”
Category: News stories -
19/02/2015
Four long years: Disabled workers and coalition policies
Rupert Harwood discusses research which he undertook between 2011 and 2013 which indicates that Government spending cuts have made it harder for disabled workers to remain in employment.
Category: Articles -
19/03/2014
Benefits bill capped at £119 billion
Total spending on most benefits and tax credits will be capped at £119.5 billion in 2015-16, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced in his 2014 Budget speech.
The so-called 'welfare cap' was originally proposed in the 2013 Spending Round. It excludes spending on state pensions and 'automatic stabilisers' (mainly jobseeker's allowance and its passported housing benefit). The level of the cap will rise in line with forecast inflation to £122 billion in 2016-17, £124.6 billion in 2017-18 and £126.7 billion in 2018-19.
The coalition government said the cap will 'ensure that significant increases in spending do not go uncorrected'.
The Child Poverty Action Group commented: 'Announcing a cap for social security spending without a plan to address the root causes of low pay, high rents and high childcare costs, simply forces the most vulnerable in society to pay the price for inaction'.
Category: News stories -
16/02/2014
Spending cuts ‘targeted at disadvantaged groups’
Cuts in public spending have been targeted at people who are already disadvantaged, according to a new report from the Centre for Welfare Reform think tank.
Drawing on official statistics, the report examines the effects of coalition measures such as increases in VAT, cuts in benefits and tax credits, and cuts in local authority funding.
Category: Reports -
06/01/2014
Osborne threatens £12bn more benefits cuts
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has revealed plans to cut an extra £25 billion from public spending by the end of 2017-18 if the Conservatives win the next election, with benefits spending as the main target for reductions.
Category: News stories -
05/12/2013
Overspending ‘caused by growth of in-work poverty’
The rising number of working people living in households in poverty is causing the coalition government to spend billions more than planned on social security, according to a new TUC report.
The report compares social security spending over the course of the current Parliament with the government’s original forecast in 2010, as well as taking a longer-term look at spending on benefits over the last three decades.
Category: Reports -
26/06/2013
New attack by Chancellor on unemployed people
Newly unemployed people will be forced to wait seven days, instead of three days currently, before being able to claim benefits. The announcement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of a statement on public spending plans for 2015-16. He said the move was designed to be 'helpful' to unemployed people, who would otherwise be distracted by the need to look for a new job.
Category: Reports -
12/11/2012
UK heading for bottom place on public spending
by Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby, University of Kent
By 2017 the UK is set to have the lowest share of public spending among major capitalist economies, including the USA, as a result of the exceptionally harsh cuts in public spending currently planned. But is this really necessary?
Category: Articles -
10/12/2010
All in this together?
by Stewart Lansley
The government has consistently argued that under the government spending review those with the broadest backs would take the heaviest burden – that the package would conform to the principle of 'progressive austerity'. However, two independent studies, the first by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the second by Tim Horton and Howard Reed for the TUC, challenge this assessment, finding that the overall impact of the spending review is regressive.
The government's plans, as announced in the 2010 spending review, involve a number of tax rises – especially the rise in VAT to 20 per cent from January 2011 – and an £81 billion package of spending cuts.[1] These are needed, the Coalition argues, to close the fiscal deficit inherited from Labour.
Category: Articles
