"This report presents findings from a survey of Pension Service customers, all of whom had experienced recent contact with the Service. The face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of current pensioners, future pensioners and their representatives, explored customers' experiences of, attitudes towards and satisfaction with the service they had received from The Pension Service. This survey was a follow up to previous studies in 2005 and 2003, identifying progress made over the interim period."--Website.
Jobcentre Plus, The Pension Service, and the Disability and Carers Service provided services to 22 million customers in 2007-08, over 80 per cent of whom were satisfied with the services they received. However, 70,000 complaints were recorded in 2007-08. This report finds that over 40 per cent of complainants remain dissatisfied.
In an increasingly risky world the need for social security support is greater than ever. Benefits and tax credits aim to provide protection against economic risks, help families with the costs of bringing up children, enable people to save for retirement, and provide support in old age. Key goals are to redistribute income to alleviate poverty and help people maintain living standards across the lifecourse. Reform of the social security and tax systems has been at the heart of the UK Labour government's aspirations to modernise the welfare state since 1997 with major changes in both policy and administration. This second edition of the important text, Understanding Social Security, reviews these policy developments, giving readers the information and analytical tools to make sense of policy debates and reforms and to evaluate options for the future. The chapters have been extensively updated since the first edition, with new chapters on social security reform, inequalities and social security, and the new 'welfare market'. The main topics covered include: · the social security safety net · racism, ethnicity, migration · social security governance · global social security · social security and the life course · the challenge of childhood poverty · reforming pensions · welfare to work · sickness, incapacity and disability · tax credits · service delivery information technology The book provides a critical examination of social security policy and practice and is essential reading for students of social policy, social work and sociology, as well as policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of social security, welfare-to-work, employment, anti-poverty strategies and welfare rights. It will be of interest to those interested in recent policy developments in these areas, emerging issues and debates, and in wider issues of the modernisation of the welfare state.
The Pension Service, an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions, was established in April 2002 with responsibility for the delivery of work and benefit related services (including Pension Credit, the State Pension and winter fuel payment), and objectives including combating pensioner poverty and promoting saving amongst future pensioners. This is the Agency's sixth annual report and accounts which details its aims and objectives, activities and performance against key targets during the year 2007-08
Since its publication in the early 90s, Brenda Boardman's Fuel Poverty has been the reference text for those wishing to learn about this complex subject. In this, its successor, she turns a critical eye to the new millennium and finds that the situation, while now more widely recognised, is far from having improved. The book begins by discussing the political awakening to the issue and exploring just who constitutes the fuel poor. It examines the factors that contribute to fuel poverty - low incomes, high fuel prices and poor quality housing - and looks at and evaluates the policies that have been employed to help reduce the problem. The latter part presents a detailed set of proposals based around long-term improvements in the housing stock that must be employed if we are to avoid a dire situation continuing to get worse. Based on detailed analysis of the situation in the UK, the growth of fuel poverty (sometimes called energy poverty) in other countries and the new focus in European policy makes the book timely and provides important lessons for those who now have to produce policies to tackle the issues.
The main report is also available (HCP 1178-I, ISBN 0102942315). A previous NAO report on this topic (HCP 37, session 2002-03) (ISBN 0102919577) and a report by the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 565, session 2002-03) (ISBN 0215009347) are also available.
