Universal credit in danger of failing, official Whitehall review says

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/24/universal-credit-danger-failing-whitehall-review

Implementing Universal Credit: will the reforms improve the service for users? | Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Implementing Universal Credit: will the reforms improve the service for users? | Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

'via Blog this'

BBC News - RPI inflation changes 'may hit pensioners'

BBC News - RPI inflation changes 'may hit pensioners':

'via Blog this'

BBC News - Planned 1% benefits rises cap backed by MPs

BBC News - Planned 1% benefits rises cap backed by MPs:

'via Blog this'

NHS targets 'may have led to 1,200 deaths' in Mid-Staffordshire - Telegraph

NHS targets 'may have led to 1,200 deaths' in Mid-Staffordshire - Telegraph:

'via Blog this'

Universal Credit: Q&A

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11735673

April 2013: NHS reforms: From today the Coalition has put the NHS up for grabs - Telegraph

NHS reforms: From today the Coalition has put the NHS up for grabs - Telegraph: "What was now clear was that the regulations effectively forced CCGs to put all services out to tender to the private sector and forbade them to favour the NHS as the provider.
After a public outcry and criticism from the House of Lords at the way the Government had slipped in the Section 75 regulations at the eleventh hour, Hunt had them hastily rewritten. But most experts agree that there was no meaningful change. GPs are allowed to keep some services within the NHS, but only in particular circumstances, such as when no private sector provider comes forward to bid. Everything else is up for grabs. It will take time for this change to slowly spread throughout our healthcare system, but it will."

'via Blog this'

How has the coalition reformed welfare?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s02xg

Good stuff in this on welfare reform and benefits and the Thatcher legacy

Welfare reform - excellent podcast. Jones vs Young

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/the-view-from-22-north-korea-and-asias-arms-race-and-owen-jones-vs-toby-young/

Listen from 13 mins 20 seconds for a debate that sums up many different points of view on the current issue of welfare reform. Very useful for edexcel unit 3.

To what extent has Cameron been ideologically inconsistent on welfare etc?

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/26933

Gove U-Turn on EBC Feb 2013 round up

summary: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21363396

expert opinion: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19561148

explanation and looking ahead: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21365373

Mid term review Jan 2013 Coalition and Welfare

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20969484

JOBS AND WELFARE

Original coalition agreement pledges:

• Introduce payment-by-results in welfare-to-work
• Make benefits conditional on "willingness to work"
• Re-assess incapacity benefit claims
• Support unemployed people keen to start new businesses
• Simplify the benefits system

What coalition says it's achieved:

• Reforms will save £19bn per year by 2014-15
• Benefits cap to apply from 2013
• Universal Credit to simplify benefits system "radically"
• Number of people on incapacity benefits cut by 145,000

Where it accepts it has missed targets:

• Jobseeker's Allowance claimants "facing the most significant barriers to work" were to have been put onto the new welfare to work programme "immediately"; this commitment is now to refer them within three months. Similarly, the target for jobseekers under 25 has shifted from six months to nine

Labour's verdict on coalition so far:

• Benefits reforms hitting working people not "scroungers"
• Welfare-to-work programme less effective "than doing nothing"
• Welfare bill £13bn higher than planned
• Universal Credit late and over-budget
• Number of long-term unemployed young people doubled
• "Genuinely ill" people suffering from changes to incapacity benefits

Coalition's mid-term 'to do' list:

• Push forward with Universal Credit and the Youth Contract
• Introduce the Personal Independence Payment for disabled people
• Provide start-up loans and business mentors to unemployed people
• "Protect key benefits for older people"

BBC business correspondent Jonty Bloom says: Unemployment rose after the coalition came to power but has been falling back recently, and is now at about the same level as at the election. This is quite a surprise with economic growth so slow unemployment would normally have risen much faster. No one is quite sure why it hasn't shot up but despite the government shedding hundreds of thousands of staff in the public sector the private sector has continued to create work.

Mid term review Jan 2013 Coalition and Pensions/Elderly

from  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20969488

PENSIONS AND OLDER PEOPLE

Original coalition agreement pledges:

• State pension to rise each year by the highest of earnings, prices and 2.5%
• Phase out default retirement age and raise state pension
• Compensate Equitable Life policy holders
• Protect winter fuel allowances, free TV licences, free bus travel, and free eye tests and prescriptions for older people

What coalition says it's achieved:

• "Triple lock" plan on state pension now in place
• State pension age to increase to 66 by 2020 and 68 by 2028
• Age-related universal benefits protected
• Default retirement age abolished
• Payments to Equitable Life policy holders have begun

Labour's verdict on coalition so far:

• Winter fuel allowances being cut
• Pensioners will lose out after tax changes

Coalition's mid-term 'to do' list:

• Expand automatic enrolment in workplace pensions
• Reform public sector pensions
• Carry through planned changes to state pension age
• Continue to protect age-related universal benefits
• Increase incentives for pension savings

BBC political reporter Justin Parkinson says: The coalition says its changes to the system, including raising the retirement age for men and women, are aimed at making the pensions system "sustainable". The "triple lock" guarantee for increases in payments gets top billing in this section of the audit. The protection of benefits like the winter fuel allowance is vaunted. But there are increasing signs that the universal element of age-related benefits will be targeted after the next election.

Iain Duncan Smith: universally challenged | Comment is free | The Guardian

Iain Duncan Smith: universally challenged | Comment is free | The Guardian:

'via Blog this'

Housing benefit

Factcheck: How many families are claiming £100,000 per year in housing benefit? | Full Fact

Strivers vs skivers. A false dichotomy?

Skivers v strivers: the argument that pollutes people's minds http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/09/skivers-v-strivers-argument-pollutes

Is the welfare state dead?

The Welfare State, 1942-2013, obituary | Aditya Chakrabortty

Benefits 1% cut unfair says Labour

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20942887

Universal Benefits - opinion piece in the Times

Thanks to Chappers for sending it through...

Hugo Rifkind in The Times, 8/1/13

My family is a hardworking family. I mean, sure, 50 per cent of us are frankly coasting and don’t even tidy up the Lego box, but the other two of us are in the office five days a week. So I’m pretty sure we qualify. According to the Resolution Foundation, 60 per cent of coalition benefit cuts hit households like mine. And, according to many people, including Ed Miliband and most of the Labour Party, this is bad.
I can’t figure out why. It’s not that I’m saying that they’re wrong. It’s just that I can’t grasp why they think they’re right. Surely you can only be properly annoyed about something if you would be less annoyed about the opposite. Yes? So if “60 per cent of cuts hit working families” is bad, then surely, to Ed Miliband, “60 per cent of cuts hit non-working families” would be better.
Only, I’m not sure it would. In fact, I think it would be worse. Does Labour want the brunt of cuts to fall on people without any other income? Is that what socialism means these days? No. So who should it fall upon? Working people or non-working people? Because it’s got to be one of the two. Because — and I’m sorry to have to point this out, because I fear my tone might be veering towards the patronising — I’m afraid that those are the only sorts of people there are.
Of course, you could say “neither”. You could say that, if the State hasn’t got enough money, rather than cutting any benefits we should simply raise taxes. But in the case of, say, me I don’t really get the point. The particular benefit my own hardworking family is losing is child benefit, which until now has come in at £1,752 a year. Should the State tax me more so that it can keep paying me more? Would that really be sensible? To take a cheque from me every month so that it can afford to give me one back?
Some would say “yes”. Many on the left reckon that it’s vital for me to get money from the State, even if the State has to take it from me first to ensure that I feel an affinity with others who actually need it. The winter fuel allowance, an annual payment of between £200 and £300 that goes to pensioners whether they need it or not, is defended on the same basis. Essentially it’s a bribe, designed to make old folk not mind that they’ve spent their entire working lives paying tax. And it could work, too, but only if we were all faffing morons.
I mean, come on. Who is fooled by this? You want me to feel I’m getting something back for all I put in? Then don’t buy me a handful of discount logs at whatever miserable age it is that you finally let me retire. Buy me a conservatory. Every year. Hell, skip a year and buy me a Porsche.
The pretence that what we get back from the State has any connection to our contribution towards it was threadbare a generation ago and is simply nonsensical now.
If your tax bill came with an itemised statement, it would tell you, roughly, that you work for a fifth of the year paying for other people’s pensions and another fifth paying for their healthcare. And all of this in a country where a future in which other people ultimately pay for your pension and healthcare seems pretty damn tenuous. For another couple of months, more or less, your tax pays for miscellaneous benefits — jobseekers, disability and all the rest.
This is not a whinge. I’m not really complaining about my tax bill, because I’m well aware of how deeply fortunate I am to be earning enough to have one that makes me quite so miserable.
But I would like some consensus, philosophically speaking, about what is going on here. Am I supposed to feel proud about paying tax? Are those who currently need all those pensions, benefits and healthcare supposed to spend their days feeling grateful towards me that I do? The former seems to be a yes, the latter a big no. But doesn’t one entail the other? Why does nobody talk about the fundamentals? How can we hope to have a sensible conversation about tax and benefits if we can’t even talk about that?
The trouble is, different people see the fundamentals in fundamentally different ways. Rigorous left-wing thought would hold that the State has a claim on all my money, is doing me a favour to the extent that it doesn’t take it and has to reallocate some of my own money back to me as child benefit, otherwise I might forget that it basically owned my children, too.
Rigorous right-wing thought, meanwhile, would hold that the State is doing the hungry an enormous favour when it pays for their food and that they ought to exist in a state of extreme gratitude that it does so. Bailing out the poor in this respect is regarded as a bit like bailing out the banks — neither have a right to expect it, but both would cause no end of problems if they truly went to the wall.
Most of our views on tax and benefits squat incoherently and inconsistently somewhere on the spectrum between the two. Mine certainly do. But nobody ever starts there when they have an argument. Mr Miliband thinks that benefits should rise with inflation, but doesn’t say why. George Osborne thinks that they shouldn’t, but he doesn’t quite say why, either.
Never mind the nuts and bolts of thresholds and who should face more or fewer cuts. We’ll get to that. First, I want to know what life Mr Osborne believes the State should provide for those unable or unwilling to provide one for themselves. Then I want to know what Mr Miliband believes. Should every day on benefits hurt or not? Should jobs be a goal or a necessity? Do you, bluntly, think that a non-working family should have a quality of life that matches that of a working family?
Personally, I don’t really think they should. But I don’t imagine they often have that currently anyway. Probably it’s good to support working families but I don’t think the State should worry too much about supporting mine, because frankly we’re lucky enough to be supporting ourselves. But there’s Labour arguing that I should have money when I don’t need it, so that I don’t mind it also going to people who do need it, which is something that I don’t for a moment mind anyway.
I’m lost in tricks and point-scoring. I want to know what these people really think. George, park your shirkers or strivers. Ed, don’t tell me a story about your Dad, or where you went to school. Just come clean, because I simply don’t believe you’re as confused about this as I am. Show me your first principles. And after that all the other things you say about benefits will start to sound like more than partisan shouting. Because right now, they really don’t.

Why all the hoo-ha over social care and what on earth are the Dilnot proposals?

Social care refers to the care needed by people who can't perform certain basic everyday tasks themselves. Largely it refers to the elderly. Recently debate has surrounded how Britain can pay for such care in the coming years. Here is a selection of articles designed to bring you up to speed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18610954

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18610954