Welfare State- Coalition

Universal Credit
1. Claim that around 2.8m low income households do better off.
  1. Average gain- £29 perweek.
    1. Replace 6 benefits inc job seekers allowance and housing benefits with one streamlined benefit.
2. Will lift around 900,000 out of poverty, including more than 350,000 children and 550,000 working age adults.
  1. By October 2017, approx 12-13m tax credit and benefit claims will be transformed in to eight million universal credit payments.
3. Gov will invest and additional £300m into child careon top of the already £2bn spent.
  1. Removing the hours rule will mean that around 80,000 more families with children will benefit from childcare support.
Successes of UC
1. Simpler. - more people understand the system with one benefit, majority online and easily accessable.
2. 300,000+ found work and financial gains. 900,000 out of poverty = save more money
Failures of UC
1. Research from an independent thinktank warned that UC will push significant number of households into debt and suggests that instead of boosting individuals financial resilience, it will worsen their financial circumstance
2. Both opposition and backbench coalition MPs voiced concerned over the number of areas where details remain unsolved
3. Concerns over the complex computing system.
4. David Cameron attempted to reshuffle Duncan Smith in Sept '12 over cost of the proposal but secretary of state wanted to remain
5. Unease over lack of clarity how how self employed workers file monthly earnings returns, worry over a proposal to force part time workers to increase hours or face sanctions, how council tax credit and free school meals will fit in
6. Doubt over gov expectation that 80% of claimants will claim online- majority people in social housing don't have internet and courses are losing funding.
Benefit Cap
1. Of £26,000 will mean no family on benefits will earn more than the average salary of a working family.
2. 67,000 households will be affected by the cap
3. Will provide savings of £290m in2013/14 and £330m in 2014/15
Social Sector size crisis
1. will stop the practice of the state paying for rooms that are not being used. Help tackle shortage (5m people are waiting for social housing)
2. In London 70,000 households are getting housing benefit for extra bedrooms they do not need. costing the taxpayer 80m a year.
Disability Living allowance
1. replacing DLA with PIP and introducing a new face to face assessment and regular interviews.
2. The proportion of people who will receive both components at the highest rate will go up in PIP- 20% compared to 16% and so will proportion of people on one component- 56% compared to 55%.
3. Cont to spend over 40bn a year on disabled people and their services. Overall, number claiming on DLA has grown by more than 2m since it was introduced in 1992- 1.1m to 3.2

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Welfare State- Coalition

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	Created by ellamcloughlin over 10 years ago