Late last month, the DWP put out a glowing headline: 400 more disabled people in work every day. It is not entirely unwelcome news. It does mean that there has been net growth of more than 141,000 disabled people in some form of employment over the past year. It also means that the DWP is…Read more…
Should there be a NEST for your nest-egg?
It says much for the resilience of the sort of consensual approach facilitated by the Pensions Commission of a decade ago that even before the government’s rash and irresponsible pensions freedom reforms have been implemented, opinion is coalescing around the best ways to ameliorate their likely…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: front line Jobcentre workers aren’t responsible for benefit sanctions
Could this be the month when the general public start to worry about benefit sanctions? The Methodist church reported that approximately one hundred thousand children were sanctioned in 2013/14. This followed earlier work revealing that more than 100 p…Read more…
EU’s Paris Protocol – time to bring citizens to the table
EU Environment Ministers meet on 6 March to discuss and probably sign off the EU’s contribution to the Paris climate change talks, December 2015. The next day marks the national Time to Act on Climate Change march in London. The EU Commission’s proposal, The Paris Protocol: a blueprint for tackling…Read more…
Further Education budget: slashed by 24%
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) recently announced the 2015/16 funding settlement for adult skills in England. While funding for apprenticeships was largely protected, the adult further education (FE) budget is to be cut by 24%. This is an act of wilful vandalism against the principle of lifelong…Read more…
The time is now when it comes to housing
At a time of house price inflation, falling home ownership, more people privately renting and increased private rents, the recent English Housing Survey showed the proportion of people renting social housing remained steady at 17 per cent in 2013/14[1]. However, the number of people on local…Read more…
Voluntary services face bleak future as ‘servants of the Government’
The involvement of global corporations in the privatisation of public services is firmly on the nation’s agenda. But less well known is the way in which charities and voluntary groups have been seduced or cajoled by New Labour and Coalition governments into helping the outsourcing along. And, in…Read more…
Public ownership of rail is not only necessary; it is the only realistic option
A recent article in BBC News Magazine asks the question Would it be realistic to renationalise the railways? Using as a premise the recent passing of the East Coast main line from public to private hands, the article provides an interesting insight int…Read more…
Productivity: no puzzle about it
TUC work issued today contests widely-held views that weak growth in productivity is down to failures of skills and/or other defects with the structure of the economy. Our research shows instead that the government’s austerity policies should take most of the blame for the productivity…Read more…
The demand interpretation of productivity outcomes (technical)
This post follows up the main one on the productivity puzzle, and the fuller TUC report issued today. Most contributions to the debate on the productivity puzzle recognise both demand and supply must play a part. But any arguments about demand are norm…Read more…
UKIP immigration policies: making it even easier for bosses to exploit workers
Today Nigel Farage outlined UKIP’s immigration policy proposals which revolve around Britain leaving the EU and imposing an Australian-style points system on all non-British citizens entering the country. While Farage seemed to back away from making a commitment on a firm figure at which UKIP would…Read more…
IFS show incomes for most WORKING-AGE people actually FALLING over this parliament
In spite of what the IFS are reported as saying (eg ‘household incomes finally top 2008′), they confirm that real pay is down. They show median incomes for most working-age people actually fell: by -2.5% for those aged 31-59, and -7.6% for those aged 22-30 (between 2007-08 and 2014-15,…Read more…
“Social model of disability”: What’s that about?
In a week when the government is claiming credit for getting hundreds of disabled people a day into employment and global corporation Maximus is about to take over running the Work Capability Assessment from discredited ATOS, why should the TUC bother …Read more…
‘Funding for lending’ still fails to deliver as bank bosses reward themselves while cutting back lending to firms
As another bank boss was rewarded yesterday with another fat pay packet, (ironically timed) figures at the end of last week showed the ‘funding for lending scheme’ still failing to deliver. Banks continue to cut back on lending to firms (large and small), while soaking up cheap lending from the…Read more…
Viral voting: What’s good for politics is surely good for unions too
It’s good to see WebRoots Democracy’s new report into online voting “Viral voting” incorporating an important recommendation for online voting to be introduced for union balloting as well as for parliamentary votes. It’s no surprise that so many people are turned off voting…Read more…
Pensions tax: the questions that need to be answered
Amid all the uncertainties about post-election pensions policy, thanks to the unknown impact of fringe parties, the vagaries of coalition negotiations and the uncertain fates of individual party spokespersons, one subject looks likely to be near the top of any administration’s agenda: reform of…Read more…
The East Coast Mainline: Why was the government so quiet about one of its great successes?
Organisations generally want to celebrate their successes. A bit of boasting burnishes an organisation’s public image, as well as boosting the reputations of its staff, management, and promoters. Some organisations even celebrate their failures. The Royal Bank of Scotland, majority owned by the UK…Read more…
Stop playing a numbers game with net migration
Yesterday the Office for National Statistics reported that net migration has risen to 298,000 meaning the government has missed its target of reducing net migration to ‘the tens of thousands’. This is not surprising news – but that’s part of the problem. Voters already feel politicians can’t be…Read more…
Housing inequality and soaring rent costs
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) released the 2013-14 English Housing Survey data yesterday, containing some remarkable news on the English housing market. The press focused mainly on the news that outright owners of homes now…Read more…
Too much unpaid overtime is bad medicine
Today mark’s the TUC’s 11th Work Your Proper Hours Day, which is a campaign against excessive unpaid overtime. This is the first day of the year when the average person who does unpaid overtime would start getting paid if they were to work all their free hours at the start of the year….Read more…