Policy change call. Good timing.
“The current focus of Jobcentre Plus on reducing the overall number of people claiming benefits will need to shift towards helping people into secure and sustainable employment.”
A Citizens Advice call for change in the direction of welfare policy must not be lost in a crowded summer news agenda.
Plans to change how benefits are calculated for people in work will mean financial losses for many. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has said 2.1 million people will be affected when they are moved to universal credit. Average loss will be £1600 a year.
The call comes in Welfare Reform and Working People part of new Citizens Advice research on income security. Its timing is spot-on.
The prime minister has expressed her interest in helping low-income families. And in November her chief of staff* – then in a different role – wrote that people receiving tax credits “are not feckless benefit s cheats, but millions of low-paid, hard-working people who are trying to do the right thing”.
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*Nick Timothy: Dividing lines and binary choices: how the tax credit changes went wrong. Conservative Home 03/11/15
NOTE Universal credit was due throughout the UK by 2017. A delay announced last month means full roll-out will now take until 2022.