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Welfare and equalities

Poverty and inequality are financial challenges for local authorities and threaten the cohesion of their communities.

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Government Response to the CLG Select Committee Report on Implementation of Welfare Reform by Local Authorities

The Government’s response the CLG Select Committee’s report on local authority implementation of welfare reform was published on 6 June. Among the items on which the Committee focused and expressed concerns were direct payments to tenants of housing benefit, the transfer of parts of the Social Fund to local authorities, the localisation of Council Tax…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Can the Work Programme Work for All User Groups?

This report is the second by the Work and Pensions on the Work Programme (WP). The report covers the WP’s performance during the first year of operations, supply chain management, and the Programme’s payments structure, but most importantly its success in helping hard to place groups. It is concluded that the WP has the potential…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Social Justice: transforming lives one year on

* The document: Social Justice: transforming lives one year on (available here), is an update to the original document published in 2012. It is in part a progress report and in part a re-iteration of the guiding principles of the Government’s strategy for social justice. *Key to the strategy is local delivery, with civil society…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Advice services under pressure

* This briefing looks at the role of, and rising pressures on, the independent not-for-profit advice sector. * It draws on a Cabinet Office Review of the sector, and other sector-based reports, to identify and update on the key social policy and financial challenges. * It highlights the advantages of local councils developing their relationship…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

New local welfare schemes: an update

From April 1 2013 upper tier local authorities have been responsible for local welfare schemes, following the abolition of two discretionary elements of the social fund - community care grants and crisis loans. This briefing covers the background to the changes, the funding of the new arrangements, a summary of what new schemes have been…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Welfare reform and local authorities

* This briefing summarises a Select Committee report on the Implementation of welfare reform by local authorities and highlights its recommendations. * The report welcomes the localist dimension to the reforms and the contribution of local authorities to local welfare provision. It reflects evidence of concerted local efforts to implement the changes on time. *…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Protecting Low-income Households from Reducing Carbon Emissions

This briefing deals with two reports published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the distributional effects of policies to reduce carbon emissions. The first assesses the impacts of different energy and climate change policies on households (including impacts on consumer energy bills), and their effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions. The second examines how compensations in…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Ready for Ageing? Public Service and Demographic Change Select Committee

The House of Lords Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change concluded in its report, Ready for Ageing? that “the Government and our society are woefully unprepared” for the rapid ageing of the UK population. 10.7 million people in Great Britain can currently expect inadequate pensions; the major shift to ‘defined’ contribution pensions through…

England & Wales Briefing
Members

Health reforms go live: what happens next?

The structural reforms of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 are implemented on April 1 bringing huge changes for the NHS and local authorities. This special briefing considers: the state of progress in major elements of reform such as clinical commissioning groups, health and wellbeing boards and public health issues to look out for…

England & Wales Briefing