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.
When the coalition government published its flagship paper on universal credit (UC) in 2010, it promised a ‘digital first’ benefit. Since then we have seen the digitalisation of the UK’s working-age social security system, a process that continues today. But what impact has this transformation had on claimants and their rights?
Investment in social security alone will not be enough to end child poverty in Scotland, but the last 25 years shows us the clear link between social security and poverty rates across the UK. What opportunities do Scotland’s powers to invest in social security offer? And how can the Scottish government use them to reduce child poverty?
Many of us have been irritated by the splintering of the notion of poverty in recent years. Food poverty, fuel poverty, water poverty, digital poverty, transport poverty, period poverty: surely they are all just poverty we have cried! With ‘poverty’ defined as a relative lack of income, is there any merit in looking at different poverties?
What do the UK government’s crucial decisions about universal credit (UC) in 2021 tell us about social security policy? The government faced significant opposition to cutting the £20 which had been added to the UC standard allowance as the pandemic struck but went ahead anyway. The October 2021 budget then offered significant improvements to UC for those in work. These policy choices tell us a lot about current government priorities.
The Covid Realities research programme documented the everyday experiences of families with children living on a low income during the pandemic across the UK. This final report summarises the evidence.
Child Poverty Action Group’s annual cost of a child report looks at how much it costs families to provide a minimum socially acceptable standard of living for their children. Since 2012, this report series has systematically monitored the minimum cost of a child. This report updates those calculations for 2021 and outlines the factors affecting the latest figures. The total cost of raising a child to the age of 18 now stands at £160,692 for a couple and £193,801 for a lone parent.
Our Secure Futures for Children and Families project asks the question: What does a social security system that provides a secure future for children and families look like? Through a programme of roundtable events with different audiences, four citizens’ juries, and a series of written contributions, we have explored this question in detail. This report brings together what we learned from these activities.
There is increasing focus in research and policy making on the importance of the expertise brought by those with lived experience of poverty. What happens when experts by experience and experts through study and practice come together to merge their knowledge on poverty? And what implications does such a merging of knowledge have for research and policy?
The social security system has been a central feature of the pandemic response. As we move out of the emergency phase of the crisis, however, the future direction of social security policy has rarely seemed more uncertain. How can we ensure we are campaigning for ambitious change, and how can we ensure people with lived experience of the system can bring their expertise to that campaign?
Every child death is a tragedy. With child poverty rising and deepening, what role does deprivation have in child mortality? What does the National Child Mortality Database in England tell us about what we can do to reduce the number of child deaths?
