Welfare

The UK government’s spending watchdog has criticised the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) for its failure to anticipate problems in its implementation of welfare reform. The National Audit Office has called for the DWP to use the hard lessons it learned from implementing its recent program

Alex Neil Many people accessing benefits are living in constant fear that further cuts will push them into "crisis situations", a new study has found.

The High Court has ordered that a judicial review challenge to the benefit cap and its impact upon disabled people and their carers should proceed to a full hearing, and that this hearing must take place urgently. The secretary of state for work and pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, unsuccessfully argued

By Adam van Lohuizen, senior economic analyst at Shelter The impact of the cuts already made by the coalition government has been severe. And the government has pledged to make a further £12 billion reduction in welfare spending by 2017-18. But the task of making these cuts has got a whole lot hard

Local authorities in Scotland made just over 118,000 awards under the Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) scheme during 2014/15, with a total value of over £50 million granted through to 31st March 2015, new statistics have revealed. The figure was £3m more than the £47.2m initially allocated b

Further cuts to welfare funding by the UK government result in a surge in rent arrears, tenant evictions and homelessness, a new report has warned. A survey of 75 local authorities and housing associations in England, conducted by Grant Thornton UK LLP, predicted that the continuing impact of the �

Nicola Sturgeon and Grahame Smith sign the Memorandum of Understanding First minister Nicola Sturgeon has shared “serious concerns” with the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) over the impact on the people of Scotland of the UK government's commitment to continued austerity.

David Bookbinder David Bookbinder on the tricky issue of welfare in Scotland and the UK following last week’s general election result.

The national roll out of Universal Credit continued yesterday with the benefit now available to new single claimants in Kirkwall, Lerwick and Stornoway. Universal Credit, the new benefit that will replace Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, Income Support, Tax Credits and Housing

Iain Duncan Smith Iain Duncan Smith is to remain in charge of welfare reform across the UK after prime minister David Cameron decided to retain him as work and pensions secretary in his new Conservative government.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp New CBI Scotland director Hugh Aitken’s calls for austerity to be a priority for the new SNP MPs have been criticised by Business for Scotland.

A new report has called on the Scottish Government to implement a gendered response to welfare reform mitigation after it found the cuts have had a “grotesquely disproportionate impact” on women. A study by equal opportunities organisation Engender revealed that £26 billion worth o

Around 86 per cent of low income social housing tenants have seen no sign of their financial situation improving despite a recovering economy, a new survey commissioned by UK charity Turn2us has found. Crucially, households that have experienced just one change in their circumstances are now twice a

The number of British people relying on food banks is expected to reach one million, according to figures from the Trussell Trust, the UK's biggest provider of emergency food aid. The report by the trust, which has more than 400 food banks in Britain, showed the number of people given three days' em

Stirling Council is to launch a range of measures to assist benefit claimants affected by the introduction of Universal Credit. A small number of new, single claimants in Stirling will start to receive the new benefit from 25th May.