Last week, the House of Commons’ Education Committee published a report on persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils. There is growing concern about rising levels of pupil absence following the pandemic. Attendance data highlights that children from lower-income households have lower attendance rates than their peers. Children eligible for free school meals are more than twice as likely as their peers to be persistently absent from school.
As more families migrate from older benefits to universal credit, new official figures show there are 2.3 million children in households on universal credit (UC) which are having debt deductions from their benefit, forcing them to live on significantly less than their entitlement.
28% of tax credit claimants who are required to move to universal credit haven’t claimed and have had their benefits stopped and their cost-of-living payments also at stake.
The benefit cap and the two-child limit has caused hardship to tens of thousands of families, with both policies failing to meet their original aims, according to the findings of a new study.
The harms of the cost of living crisis are multiplied by the benefit cap and two-child limit, flagship policies of the welfare reform agenda which sharply sever the relationship between need and support provided by our social security system.
Digital aspects of universal credit (UC) routinely lead to wrong amounts being awarded to claimants – often the most vulnerable - and to breaches of rule-of-law principles, new Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) research finds.
The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of two universal credit claimants who brought judicial reviews against the DWP after waiting months for their first payments of UC due to them not having a national insurance number at the point they claimed the benefit, despite DWP having verified their identity and determined they were eligible for UC.
An EU citizen (WV) who is a carer for his severely disabled British wife (J) has – with support from Child Poverty Action Group - won a legal battle with the DWP after a Tribunal found the couple were wrongly underpaid universal credit for nearly 2 years while he had pre-settled status, since the couple’s joint claim was refused by the DWP in 2020.