The role of incapacity benefit reassessment in helping claimants into employment
The role of incapacity benefit reassessment in helping claimants into employment

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2011-07-26

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 9780215560865

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The Work and Pensions Committee supports the Government's objectives for the incapacity benefit (IB) reassessment, which are to help people with disabilities and long-term health conditions to move back into employment, while continuing to provide adequate support for people who have limited capability for work or are unable to work. However, the report finds that the Government's positive messages about the IB reassessment are not getting through to the public. The report argues that that the Government should be more proactive in explaining its aims for the process and in emphasising the range of support which will be available. Current incapacity benefit claimants are being reassessed to decide whether they are able to work. The inquiry looked in detail at the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), the test which is used to assess whether an incapacity benefit claimant is capable of work, or work-related activity. WCAs are carried out by Atos Healthcare as part of a contract with the Department for Work and Pensions. It is widely accepted that the WCA was flawed, in the form in which it was introduced in 2008 for new ESA claimants, leading to a high proportion of inaccurate assessments and poor decisions by Jobcentre Plus. Many of these decisions were overturned at appeal. The report acknowledges that many welcome improvements have been made to the reassessment process as a result of the review by Professor Malcolm Harrington and the trial of the process carried out in Aberdeen and Burnley, before it was introduced nationally.

Outcome-Based Cooperation
Outcome-Based Cooperation

Author: Christopher Hodges

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-09-22

Total Pages: 595

ISBN-13: 1509962492

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How do we cooperate – in social, local, business, and state communities? This book proposes an Outcome-Based Cooperative Model, in which all stakeholders work together on the basis of trust and respect to achieve shared aims and outcomes. The Outcome-Based Cooperative Model is built up from an extensive analysis of behavioural and social psychology, genetic anthropology, research into behaviour and culture in societies, organisations, regulation, and enforcement. The starting point is acceptance that humanity is facing ever larger risks, which are now systemic and even existential. To overcome the challenges, humans need to cooperate more, rather than compete, alienate, or draw apart. Answering how we do that requires basing ourselves, our institutions, and systems on relationships that are built on trust. Trust is based on evidence that we can be trusted to behave well (ethically), built up over time. We should aim to agree common goals and outcomes, moderating those that conflict, produce evidence that we can be trusted, and examine our performance in achieving the right outcomes, rather than harmful ones. The implications are that we need to do more in rebasing our relationships in local groupings, business organisations, regulation, and dispute resolution. The book examines recent systems and developments in all these areas, and makes proposals of profound importance for reform. This is a new blueprint for liberty, solidarity, performance, and achievement.

Can the Work Programme work for all user groups?
Can the Work Programme work for all user groups?

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: Stationery Office

Published: 2013-05-21

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780215057600

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The Work Programme has the potential to work well for relatively mainstream jobseekers but is unlikely to reach the most disadvantaged long-term unemployed people. The Government spent some £248 million less on the Work Programme than anticipated in 2012/13, due to providers' under-performance in a "payment-by-results" programme. In the short term, the Committee urges the Government to use the unspent Work Programme budget to: extend proven, alternative provision for disadvantaged jobseekers, such as the Work Choice programme for disabled people; extend and continue to promote Access to Work to help disabled people overcome the practical difficulties of starting a job; and provide further support for individuals who complete their two-year attachment to the Work Programme without finding sustained employment. The Committee also highlights that people with the severest barriers to work, such as homelessness and serious drug and alcohol problems are often not ready for the Work Programme and need support first to prepare for it. It recommends that DWP pilots ways of providing this additional support to prepare these groups for effective engagement with the Work Programme before they are referred. In the longer-term, the Committee calls on DWP to consider moving away from the current differential pricing model, which is based on the type of benefit a participant is claiming, to a much more individualised, needs-based model. The Report recommends that DWP should assess how a needs-based pricing structure could determine the appropriate level of up-front funding and the types of services required to support individual jobseekers.

Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and the National Employment Savings Trust
Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and the National Employment Savings Trust

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9780215042972

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The Government established NEST as a low-cost pension scheme to help deliver the auto-enrolment programme and to address a market failure in the pensions industry which meant that many employers and employees were unable to access low-cost, good quality pension provision. However, the Committee believes that certain restrictions placed on NEST will create complexity for employers and will disadvantage some employees. The Committee's report recommends that, if state aid rules allow, the Government should remove the following restrictions: the cap on the annual contributions an individual can make to a NEST scheme; and the ban on individuals transferring existing pension pots into NEST. The Committee further urges the Government to proceed with its plans for State Pension reform, introducing a flat-rate State Pension and reducing the level of means-testing without delay. The report also highlights the difficulties and complexity employers and employees currently face in comparing the fees and charges applied by pension providers and recommends that, from 2013 onwards, if some auto-enrolment schemes still have hidden charges, or charges that represent poor value for money, the Government should use its powers to intervene. Auto-enrolment will impose new costs and may be particularly challenging for small employers however the Committee considers that the Government has taken appropriate steps to minimise the impact on businesses through its gradual and flexible approach ("staging and phasing") to implementation. Exempting small employers would create significant complexity, as well as excluding many employees from the benefits of workplace pension saving

The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice
The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice

Author: Marc Hertogh

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 745

ISBN-13: 0190903082

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"The core animating feature of administrative justice scholarship is the desire to understand how justice is achieved through the delivery of public services and the actions, inactions, and decision-making of administrative bodies. The study of administrative justice also encompasses the redress systems by which people can challenge administrative bodies to seek the correction of injustices. For a long time now, scholars have been interested in administrative justice, but without necessarily framing their work as such. Rather than existing under the rubric of administrative justice, much of the research undertaken has existed within sub-categories of disciplines, such as law, sociology, public policy, politics, and public administration. Consequently, although aspects of the topic have attracted rich contributions across such disciplines, administrative justice has rarely been studied or taught in a manner that integrates these areas of research more systematically. This Handbook signals a major change of approach. Drawing together a group of world-leading scholars of administrative justice from a range of disciplines, The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice shows how administrative justice is a vibrant, complex, and contested field that is best understood as an area of inquiry in its own right, rather than through traditional disciplinary silos"--

Administrative Justice in Wales and Comparative Perspectives
Administrative Justice in Wales and Comparative Perspectives

Author: Sarah Nason

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1786831406

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This book offers a unique understanding of what administrative justice means in Wales and for Wales, whilst also providing an expert and timely analysis of comparative developments in law and administration. It includes critical analysis of distinctly Welsh administrative laws and redress measures, whilst examining contemporary administrative justice issues across a range of common and civil law, European and international jurisdictions. Key issues include the roles of commissioners, administrative courts, tribunals and ombudsmen in devolved and federal nations, and evolving relationships between citizens and the state – especially in the context of localisation and austerity – and will be of interest to legal and public administration professionals at home and internationally.

Social work and poverty
Social work and poverty

Author: Lester Parrott

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1447307941

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Social Work and Poverty provides a timely review of the key issues that social workers and service users face when working together to combat poverty. Lester Parrot first situates social work and poverty within a historical context, analyzing various poverty concepts and theories and how then can lead to practices that work against the oppression of service users. Including reference to international practice throughout, he then critically evaluates the United Kingdom's 2012 Welfare Reform Act, highlighting the negative impact that it will have on service users and social workers alike. Ranging from topics such as access to food, obesity, drug use, and the effects of globalization, he provides a fresh understanding of poverty and how we can better overcome it.

Improving Governance and Best Practice in Workplace Pensions
Improving Governance and Best Practice in Workplace Pensions

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2013-04-25

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 9780215056979

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The introduction of auto-enrolment makes rigorous pension scheme governance essential. This Report calls on the Government to reassess the case for establishing one body with sole responsibility for regulating workplace pensions. There are concerns over current gaps in regulation and the potential for further gaps to arise as a result of now having three regulators, the Pensions Regulator; and the new Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority, set up to replace the FSA. The Report argues that a single regulator is necessary to ensure that all members of workplace pension schemes are adequately and consistently protected. It also highlights that deferred-member charges and member-borne consultancy charges have the potential to cause serious consumer detriment. It recommends that both are banned by the Government, if significant progress is not made in the very near future by the industry towards ending them. There is particular concern about member-borne consultancy charges and those charges applied to deferred members - people who stop contributing to their pension scheme. The trend towards lower pension scheme charges is welcome. However, a good average is not sufficient and there is potential for consumer detriment in schemes that persist in retaining high charges. The Government should also regularly review its policy on capping charges for auto-enrolment schemes. Consumers are also continuing to lose out when they buy annuities because pension providers are not doing enough to ensure people are aware that they can shop around for the best annuity rate rather than being obliged to buy an annuity from their pension provider.

HC 481 - Improving Access to Work for Disabled People
HC 481 - Improving Access to Work for Disabled People

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 0215080858

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Access to Work (AtW) is an important element of specialist employment support for disabled people. It is unique in providing help to people already in, or about to start, mainstream work. It has the potential to be an extremely effective model, helping to address the substantial gap between the employment rate for disabled people and that of the rest of the population. Where it works well, it transforms the lives of disabled people, many of whom would be unable to work without it.There is strong evidence that AtW currently supports only a minority of disabled people whom it might benefit. There is a misperception that the sole purpose of AtW is to provide physical aids, equipment and transport for people with sensory impairments and physical disabilities; consequently relatively few people with other types of disability, and different support needs, currently use the programme. In scaling up the programme DWP needs to address this imbalance. Its priority should be supporting a much greater number of people with mental health problems, and intellectual, cognitive and developmental impairments, including learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. AtW's focus should remain on removing barriers to employment for the full range of disabled people who can benefit from it. DWP should make a strong and evidence-based case to HM Treasury for substantial additional funding for AtW and then aim to increase take-up through much more high profile marketing, and proactive promotion of AtW, including through Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches and contracted employment services providers.

Universal Credit Implementation
Universal Credit Implementation

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-11-22

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780215050748

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The Universal Credit pilots (Pathfinders) will begin in the north west of England in April 2013 and full national roll-out is due to start in October 2013. The Government has designed a welfare system which should help ease the transition from benefits to work, but significant concerns remain about the potential impact of the changes on some of the most vulnerable benefit claimants, especially the online claims system and the proposed single monthly payment. The Government needs to reflect on its ambitious implementation timetable. Under Universal Credit, payments to cover the costs of rent will go to the benefit claimant, rather than direct to the landlord. This is a major change and the Committee therefore recommends that, during the initial phases of implementation, claimants who currently have their housing costs paid to their landlord should have the option to continue with this arrangement. The Committee also notes that it has not yet received sufficient evidence to satisfy itself that the Government will achieve its stated aim of ensuring more generous support for the disabled. The Government plans to calculate monthly Universal Credit payments by using information taken from data feeds from HMRC's new Real Time Information (RTI) system though there are concerns about that programme. The Committee, further, recognises that there is likely to be a significant increased demand for advice services during the four-year transition to Universal Credit. The report also comments on closely-related policy areas, including: the conditionality and sanctions regime; passported benefits; localisation of council tax support; localisation of the Social Fund