Research Briefing
Cold Weather Payments are made from the Social Fund to certain recipients of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Universal Credit or Pension Credit during periods of very cold weather. The amount is £25 a week for eligible benefit claimants.
Research Briefing
In the event Scotland becoming an independent country, the Scottish and Westminster governments would have to address two main issues with regard to welfare provision: how to deliver benefits and tax credits in the initial transitional period following independence; and how the two countries' systems should relate to each other in the longer term.
Research Briefing
Domestic legislation provides that both Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit cannot normally be paid in respect of children resident abroad. However, under provisions in EU law on social security coordination within the European Economic Area (EEA), Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit may be payable to EEA migrants in the United Kingdom in respect of their dependent children resident in another Member State.
Research Briefing
This note gives an overview of support for childcare under the Labour Government 1997-2010.
Research Briefing
Cold Weather Payments are made from the Social Fund to certain recipients of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Universal Credit or Pension Credit during periods of very cold weather.
Research Briefing
From 1 April 2013, a new advance of benefit facility administered by DWP replaced Social Fund Budgeting Loans, interim payments of benefits and "alignment payments". This note gives details of the new system of Short Term Benefit Advances and Budgeting Advances.
Research Briefing
Starting in selected “Pathfinder” areas from April 2013, Universal Credit (UC) will begin to replace a range of means-tested benefits and tax credits for working age families. The Draft Universal Credit Regulations set out the detailed rules for the new benefit.
Research Briefing
Social security legislation requires the Secretary of State to review benefit levels each year to determine whether they have retained their value relative to prices. For most benefits annual uprating is not mandatory, but historically governments have exercised their discretion by increasing the principal means-tested working-age benefits each April in line with prices. In his 2012 Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced that increases in most working-age benefits would be limited to 1% a year for three years from 2013-14, as part of a package to deliver additional welfare savings of £3.7 billion a year by 2015-16. The Bill amends primary legislation to enable the decisions on uprating in 2014-15 and 2015-16 to be implemented.
Research Briefing
As a result of measures in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, certain elements of the discretionary Social Fund scheme will be replaced by new locally based provision delivered by local authorities in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales.
Research Briefing
Starting from next year, Universal Credit (UC) will begin to replace a range of means-tested benefits and tax credits for working age families. The intention is to simplify and streamline the benefits system for claimants, making it easier for people to understand; to reduce the financial and administrative barriers to work; to tackle in-work poverty; and to bear down on fraud and error.
Research Briefing
Cold Weather Payments of 25 pounds a week are made to certain recipients of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit during periods of very cold weather. To ‘trigger’ the payments, the average temperature at a specified weather station must be recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees or below for seven consecutive days.
Research Briefing
At the Conservative Party conference in October 2010 the Chancellor announced that from January 2013 Child Benefit would be withdrawn from families with a higher rate taxpayer. Revised proposals were set out in Budget 2012 under which Child Benefit will instead be clawed back gradually from families with a taxpayer with an income between £50,000 and £60,000 a year.
Research Briefing
At the moment, couples with children need only work at least 16 hours a week in order to qualify for Working Tax Credit. From April 2012, this will increase to 24 hours for most couples. Over 200,000 families will be affected, and there are concerns about the impact on those unable to increase their hours to meet the new threshold. The change does not affect lone parents, for whom the 16 hour threshold for WTC will still apply.
Research Briefing
The Welfare Reform Bill has its Third Reading in the House of Lords on 31 January 2012. At Report Stage in the Lords, the government suffered defeats on amendments relating to under-occupation of social housing, the Employment and Support Allowance, the proposed benefit cap, and child support maintenance
Research Briefing
Most but not all benefits are uprated in April each year, by reference to the increase in prices over the year to the previous September. The current Government has adopted the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) as the measure of inflation for uprating purposes. CPI tends to rise more slowly than the measures used. previously. The CPI for September 2011 was higher than expected, and media reports have suggested that the Government was considering changing the basis for uprating benefits. In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced that while benefits would increase by the full CPI from April 2011, the couple and lone parent elements of Working Tax Credit would be frozen and the child element of Child Tax Credit would increase by less than was planned.
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