Submitted by Helen Crowther on Wed, 15/02/2012 - 4:36pm
Today (15 February) the Department for Work and Pensions released new statistics on In-Work Credit, Income Support for Lone Parents and Employment and Support Allowance.
The key point from the In-Work Credit release was that up to the end of September 2011, there were 286,600 In-Work Credit starts.
Between April and June 2010, Citizens Advice Bureaux across England and Wales dealt with 6% more benefits problems than they did in the same period last year.
Figures released today show that from April to June this year, the overall rise in welfare benefits enquiries was mainly due to large increases in requests for advice on sickness and disability related benefits:
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Lord David Freud, minster for welfare reform discussed the high costs of the welfare system:
"The direct cost of our welfare system will shock you. There is fraud and error in excess every year of £5bn. We disregard nearly a billion and it actually costs £2.5bn to administer.
According to Camilla Cavendish,the benefits system has produced a generation of men incapable of finding work or a wife. Writing in the Times, she criticises the huge potential for ‘fraud’ and ‘foulplay’ within a system that has created an army of ‘unemployed, unmarriageable and unconfident men’. The women do not want them, she argues, because they can raise families on benefits without their help. Controversial?
Jazani’s post linking to the Tory election poster promoting/ threatening a crackdown on benefit recipients got me thinking about providers and benefit sanctions.
