Cabinet minister ‘misled’ Parliament over welfare reform
Andrew Lansley, a Tory Cabinet minister, is facing claims that he misled Parliament after doubts were cast on his denial that ministers attempted to influence a report by MPs into the Universal Credit fiasco
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Andrew Lansley, the Leader of the House, earlier this month told the Commons that there was “no truth” to allegations that ministers had approached Tory MPs on the public accounts committee to ask that its report name and shame his department’s permanent secretary, Robert Devereux.
The PAC report said that £140million had been squandered on the flagship welfare reform and accused the Government of “alarmingly weak” management.
Mr Duncan Smith denied allegations that he had attempted to have anyone blamed in the report.
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However, Margaret Hodge, the committee’s chairman, has now cast doubt on those claims and said that senior figures in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had sought to influence her report.
In comments to students on November 11 – four days after the publication of he committee’s report – Mrs Hodge said: “I can’t tell you how much inappropriate talking there was to me and other members of the committee, by both ministers and civil servants, either to get me to blame the permanent secretary in the DWP and therefore transfer blame away from Iain Duncan Smith or to put the blame on Mr Devereux and to ensure ministers escaped blame.”
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Iain Duncan Smith and the Tories F*Up again: Training people to use universal credit ‘could cost hundreds of millions’
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/21/universal-credit-benefit-training-cost-millions
Research shows many benefit claimants will need extensive help to get online, open bank accounts and manage budgets
Equipping benefit claimants with the digital and financial skills to use the government’s new universal credit welfare system is likely to cost hundreds of millions of pounds, unpublished research commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has found.
The study, carried out by three London councils using DWP data and a methodology agreed with Whitehall officials, found they would each need to spend about £6m over a two-year period to support vulnerable claimants to get online, help them open bank accounts and manage monthly budgets.
The research, seen by the Guardian, , reveals the extent to which socially excluded claimants will struggle with the huge cultural and behavioural changes demanded by universal credit, and warns that without help, those who fail to get to grips with the new welfare system will face debts, arrears and eviction, leading to a rise in homelessness.
It suggests councils, charities and private companies will be required to deliver millions of hours of specialist training and support face-to face and over the telephone to ensure claimants are confident and technically proficient enough to use the system.
Around one in 10 users of the system are likely to need intensive or ongoing support, it finds.
The scale and cost will unnerve ministers, who are struggling to roll out the beleaguered £2.4bn universal credit system, and have admitted that they have already written off at least £140m on failed IT systems for the project. Ministers are expected to decide by Christmas whether to write off universal credit altogether and start again, or reduce it in size and complexity to make it more manageable.
Those behind universal credit see it as an opportunity to tackle digital and financial exclusion for up to 8m households. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has called it a chance for claimants to “get back in to the 21st century“.
But while they anticipated that this would require some investment, they are understood to be taken aback by the potential size of the support bill – which could reach £100m for London alone – and have ordered departmental analysts to see if it can be reduced.
Under universal credit, six existing benefits will be rolled into a single monthly payment, out of which claimants will be expected to pay rent, spread living costs over a four-week period, and provide regular online updates marking changes in their income and job status. Unemployed claimants will also have to search for jobs online.
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Archbishop attacks UK food poverty
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/19/food-poverty-archbishop-york-john-sentamu
John Sentamu calls for ‘more equitable, more caring world’ and questions effects of government’s welfare reforms
The archbishop of York has attacked the “new and terrible” blight of food poverty and increasing malnutrition in Britain, questioned the effects of the government’s welfare reforms and called for a renewal of the postwar spirit that hungered for “a more equitable, more caring world”.
In a long and often angry address to the Church of England general synod on Tuesday, John Sentamu said static salaries and rising prices had left nine million people living below the breadline at a time when the chief executives of the UK’s 100 biggest companies were earning on average £4.3m – 160 times the average national wage.
“We are an advanced economy, a first-world country, and we have been one for longer than most,” said the archbishop. “But we suffer from blight – increasing poverty in a land of plenty.”
Sentamu, who chairs the Living Wage Commission, said politicians needed to stop referring to “hard-working” families and recognise that they were instead “hard-pressed” families struggling to survive despite their best efforts.
“Once upon a time you couldn’t really be living in poverty if you had a regular income,” he said. “You could find yourself on a low income, yes. But that is not longer so. You can be in work and still live in poverty.”
Reports of malnutrition and food poverty in Yorkshire “disgrace us all, leaving a dark stain on our consciences”, he said. “How can it be that last year more than 27,000 people were diagnosed as suffering from malnutrition in Leeds – not Lesotho, not Liberia, not Lusaka but Leeds?”
The effects of the government’s welfare reforms, Sentamu said, were “beginning to bite – with reductions in housing benefit for so-called under-occupation of social housing, the cap on benefits for workless householders and single parents, and the gradual replacement of the disability living allowance with a personal independence payment”.
He questioned whether the bedroom tax made economic sense, as those leaving accommodation to avoid the under-occupancy charge were being rehoused in private lodgings at a greater cost. He expressed incredulity that the statutory minimum wage had been raised by just 12p last month.
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Bedroom tax affected more than 522,000 people, first figures show
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/13/bedroom-tax-figures-august
The government has released the first statistics showing the impact of the controversial subsidy withdrawal in August
More than 522,000 housing benefit claimants were subject to the bedroom tax in August and had their housing benefit reduced by an average of £14.50 a week, official figures show.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the figures were the first official returns on the impact of the controversial tax, or bedroom subsidy withdrawal.
They show more than 429,000 people were penalised for having one bedroom too many, losing an average of £12.66 a week; more than 92,000 were penalised for having two excess bedrooms, and were losing an average of £23.43 a week.
The government said there had been a steady fall in the number of households affected, with 24,000 fewer claimants affected than in May.
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