I had an interesting meeting I wanted to tell you about. I had the opportunity to meet with the Minister for Employment and the Secretary of State for Education at 10 Downing Street.
It’s right that benefits are uprated as usual but this should never have been in doubt and legislation mandating inflationary increases is needed as a basic protection for living standards. Struggling families have been worrying themselves sick for months about whether an unmanageable income cut was coming in order to provide the government with a rabbit-out-of-the-hat moment.
New research from Child Poverty Action Group shows child poverty’s heavy toll on children’s physical and mental health, their education and how they feel about themselves and their futures.
Across the UK, approximately 30 per cent of all children are living in poverty – nearly four million in total. This is already far too high, yet projections indicate this number will rise. What does this mean for children’s health? And what can be done to help medical professionals support families facing poverty and health inequalities?
We undertook research to find out whether the DWP is meeting the needs of people with mental health problems and making adjustments to their service as required by law. UC was promoted in its early stages as a personalised service, providing support to meet people’s needs. We wanted to find out whether it has lived up to this ambition.
An update to the report we published at the beginning of 2021 highlighting that delays carrying out assessments for disability benefits meant that many disabled people were not receiving or were losing support intended to help them meet the additional costs of their disability.
This report highlights that delays carrying out assessments for benefits mean that many disabled people are not receiving, or are losing support, intended to help them meet the additional costs of ill health or disability.
To understand the impact of child poverty on the lives of children and families in England better, CPAG, the Child Welfare Inequalities Project (CWIP) and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) conducted a survey of social workers between January and March 2020 to ask them about the experiences of the families they work with.
