George Osborne has announced further tough changes to Welfare Benefits. (Spending ReviewJune 2013).
· Introduce, for the first time, an overall limit on Benefit spending; a Welfare Cap. This will restrict the amount of the overall Benefit bill to around £100 billion per year excluding State Retirement Pension and some benefits that are ‘cyclical’(recession related) such as Jobseekers Allowance. Actual amounts will be set at the budget in 2014. Potential savings could be £billions. Will apply from 2014/15.
The following smaller changes will save £350 million which will be reinvested to help claimants back to work(from 2014– 2015)-
· introducing upfront work search, requiring all claimants to prepare for work and search for jobs right from the start of their claim
· introducing weekly rather than fortnightly visits to Jobcentres for half of all jobseekers
· requiring all unemployed claimants, and those earning less than the Government expects them to, to wait seven days before becoming eligible for financial support(not for JSA(C) or ESA(C))
· requiring all claimants who are subject to conditionality to verify their claim every year
· requiring all claimants whose poor spoken English is a barrier to work to improve their English language skills
· requiring lone parents who are not working to prepare for work once the youngest child turns three
· Winter Fuel Payments to stop for those living in a European country with an average winter temperature higher than the UK
Changes are on top the £21.6 billion of benefit cuts announced in 2010 and 2012 by the government(90% of which have gone through).
Click here for our Introduction to Welfare Benefits 2013 course.