The Government has signalled it will end the ‘rigid focus’ on the 35-hour a week job search requirements for out of work benefit claimants after a Work and Pensions Committee report called on it to scrap blanket benefit requirements. In its response to the Committee’s Get Britain Working: Reforming Jobcentres report published today, the DWP…
Tag: UC
Local Housing Allowance rates have been realigned to market rents in just two of the last 13 years.
Local Housing Allowance rates have been realigned to market rents in just two of the last 13 years. Current Government policy, reflected in the official forecasts, is for them to remain frozen for another four years. https://x.com/resfoundation/status/1982024694099280302?s=19 When LHA is frozen, rent rises soon wipe out increases in other income https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/housing-outlook-q4-2025/
CPI inflation has held steady at 3.8% in September.
CPI inflation has held steady at 3.8% in September. This means the Universal Credit standard allowance will be uprated by at least 6.2% in April – a boost worth nearly £6 per week. Had inflation hit 4% in Sept, as widely forecast, UC would have got a lightly bigger 6.4% boost next spring.
No need for a moral panic about the welfare system
https://www.ft.com/content/ee67c643-01bc-41f6-a4e2-c738deef129e Britain is in the grip of a moral panic over welfare benefits. The preferred adjective for the costs of social security benefits to those not yet at pension age is “spiralling”, and it is used as much by Labour ministers as by the opposition. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has expressed horror at 6.5mn working-age…
Work Capability Assessment delays are leaving disabled people in limbo
https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/work-capability-assessment-delays-are-leaving-disabled-people-in-limbo-a1deb1e457cb Disabled people can get extra support under Universal Credit (UC) if they’re found eligible after a Work Capability Assessment (WCA). But many of those who come to Citizens Advice are waiting months, if not over a year, for this assessment. In the meantime, many struggle to afford essential costs and risk being pushed into…
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether existing claimants of Employment Support Allowance, who leave the social security system and later need to return to claim (a) Employment Support Allowance and (b) Universal Health, will be considered new claimants.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-08-29/71743 Answered on5 September 2025 Customers who leave the social security system and later need to return to claim New Style Employment Support Allowance or the Universal Credit health element will be considered new claimants, unless they stopped receiving Universal Credit as a result of increased earnings and then return to payment within six months….
Not so Universal: the two-tiered health element. How the Universal Credit Bill will create a two-tiered system for disabled people.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/policy/publications/not-so-universal-the-two-tiered-health-element-how-the-universal-credit-bill/ The government’s decision to remove cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from the Universal Credit Bill (UC bill) was the right call. However, damaging and unjustified cuts elsewhere in the health and disability benefits system have been overlooked. The UC bill will have a devastating impact on disabled people and their families. An estimated…
Welfare reform: health-related and disability benefits
Keep up-to-date with the main changes
https://cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/whats-new/welfare-reform-health-and-disability-benefits Keep up-to-date with the main changes included in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, the Universal Credit Bill and the Employment Rights Bill, affecting personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA), jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) and statutory sick pay (SSP), including proposals for PIP health assessments, work capability assessments, and…
Exploring the psychological harm of national government debt collection.
https://www.moneyandmentalhealth.org/publications/nothing-personal/ This report examines how central government departments collect debt. In particular it focuses on how the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) recoups benefits overpayments – showing its approach to be more sudden and harsh than that of consumer creditors. The research shows that 1.1 million people across the UK owe the DWP money…
Timetable of proposed benefits changes
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/timetable-of-proposed-benefits-changes The Universal Credit Bill is now certain to become law, after being subject to some very significant amendments which removed all matters relating to personal independence payment (PIP). However, this is just the start of years of proposed welfare reforms by the Labour government. We’ve set out some of the major planned changes below. …