11 May 2012: Claimants’ views on personal independence payment application process
New DWP research highlights claimants’ expectations that they will not be treated well by DWP
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02 May, 2012: Increase in tax credit working hours requirement to affect more than 200,000 families, according to HMRC
New figures prove that families have not been able to find extra work required to avoid cut, says shopworker’s union. Continue reading
1 May, 2012: Legal Aid Bill receives Royal Assent
New legislation likely to leave hundreds of thousands of people without access to legal aid from April 2013 Continue reading
1 May, 2012: Changes to contributory ESA will leave hundreds of thousands of disabled people facing poverty
Disability Rights UK warns that new rules are unlikely to incentivise work and will penalise those who have worked Continue reading
24 April, 2012: 53 per cent of completed work capability assessments find claimant fit for work
However new statistics also show that 41 per cent of all ‘fit for work’ decisions have been appealed against Continue reading
18 April, 2012: Government wins Commons vote on excluding welfare benefits from scope of legal aid
However, legal aid to be allowed in cases going to Upper Tribunal and beyond, with government to look at legal aid for tribunals that involve ‘a legal issue’ Continue reading
17 April, 2012: Government to use ‘financial privilege’ to overturn Lords amendments on legal aid
Use of parliamentary procedure will keep welfare benefits out of the scope of legal aid, except in cases going to upper courts Continue reading
16 April, 2012: Government to consider recovering unpaid truancy fines from child benefit
Payment of penalty notices should be ‘swift and certain’, says Michael Gove Continue reading
02 April, 2012: Mind Chief Executive resigns from Professor Harrington’s WCA Scrutiny Panel
Insufficient recognition of need to change approach to a process which isn’t working, says Paul Farmer Continue reading
27 March, 2012: DWP publishes SSAC review of passported benefits under universal credit and government response
Long term government proposal that benefits and services are added as components of universal credit and withdrawn gradually as income increases Continue reading