The Government have waved through another year of frozen benefits for millions of working people.

Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs have pointed out the detrimental impact this will have on people.

The state pension will rise by 3% next year under the triple lock and other payments such as disability benefit Personal Independence Payment, Carer's Allowance and the limited work capability element of Universal Credit will rise by the same amount.

However, other payments such as Child Benefit, Jobseeker's Allowance, housing benefits and tax credits will remain frozen under welfare reforms brought in by the Government.

Image: Debbie Abrahams MP

"The Government's decision to limit the cap on uprating to 1% between 2013 and 2015 and the subsequent freeze on the clear majority of social security payments has seen low-income households suffer a significant deterioration in the adequacy of social security support," said shadow work and pensions secretary Debbie Abrahams.

The government today publishes its response to Matt Taylor’s review of the gig economy, promising a raft of new rights for casual workers.

The BBC has a write-up here. The response has been mixed, with center-ground groups like the Resolution Foundation welcoming the plan, but Labour and the trade unions insisting it does not go far enough. Business Secretary Greg Clark will be touring the broadcast studios this morning, as the government tries to show there is more to life than Brexit.

The very nature of work has been changing in recent years as, for example, the gig economy develops and automation takes off. For some, the labour market has been radically transformed, but for others their experience of work has remained constant – and not necessarily for the better. As our seven portraits of modern work reveal, problems with economic security and the quality of work are pervasive across the labour market.

The RSA carried out a survey and segmentation of the British workforce in partnership with Populus to explore the state of good work in the UK. Good work, in essence, captures the two most important considerations for many people when pursuing a job – the offer of economic security and a rewarding experience.

ABC Comment. the report is attatched below: 

The Resolution Foundation have released this report: Generational welfare:

Key Findings:

Because the modern welfare state developed as they were in older working age, cohorts that have now mainly reached the end of their lives – members of the forgotten generation (born 1896-1910) and the oldest two-thirds of the greatest generation (1911-25) – emerge as clear net beneficiaries.

Measured relative to GDP per capita, these cohorts’ average withdrawals from the welfare state were at least 25 per cent higher than their contributions. The silent generation (1926-45), however, were mostly in early working age during the establishment of the modern welfare state from the late-1940s onwards. This means that the increased spend on education for subsequent cohorts, along with health and pension provision they were taxed to fund for other cohorts, was almost greater than the support they received themselves, leaving them with ‘net withdrawals’ of 5 to 15 per cent.

People start off as net welfare beneficiaries as they progress through the education system,  and start contributing by paying taxes once they enter work. On average they become net welfare contributors in their late-30s and become net beneficiaries again in old age as they receive healthcare and pensioner benefits.

While the precise path of future welfare spending remains hugely uncertain, it is clear that successive governments have so far failed to adjust either the UK’s tax-raising potential, or its welfare promise for current and future generations, to account for future fiscal pressures. Managing this trade-off is key to finding an equitable distribution of resources across generations and to maintaining the inter-generational contract.

In facing this challenge, it is important to question one assumption that is common to both of the scenarios we have described: that the additional tax burden associated with funding the services we currently value should fall on current or future working age populations. This is particularly the case given cohorts now entering retirement have wealth levels at each age exceeding those of both previous retirees and generations that follow.

The net lifetime benefits for younger generations will be decided by future policy choices. As policy-makers wrestle with big questions about the future path of tax and spend we should remember the significant implications for generational living standards and equity.

ABC Note: please find the report below:

In March 2014, DWP announced that some offices were transferring to new postal addresses as part of a modernisation process. 

However, DWP is still receiving incorrectly addressed post. This can result in delayed action for customers and partners.

External partners, including local authorities, should ensure they are using the correct postal address or Business Reply Envelope. Envelopes should not have any additional information, for example ‘FAO’, written on them.

ABC Note: Below is a full list of DWP postal Addresses. Please download. 

ABC Note: 

All customer phone lines to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have become Freephone numbers.

The Warm Home Discount Scheme provides a £140 rebate on electricity bills to certain Pension Credit Guarantee Credit claimants.

Most eligible claimants will have received the rebate automatically from their energy supplier. Eligible claimants who received a letter advising them to contact the Warm Home Discount helpline must call by 31 January 2018 to receive the rebate.

People who claim other means-tested benefits may be eligible to receive a rebate, and should contact their energy supplier directly. 

Tax-Free Childcare is a new government scheme to help working parents with the cost of childcare.

Parents with children aged under 9 can now apply online to receive up to £2,000 per child, per year, to pay towards childcare. For disabled children, aged under 17, parents can receive up to £4,000 per child, per year.

Tax-Free Childcare will be rolled out to children aged under 12 from 14 February 2018.

The existing Employer-Supported Childcare scheme remains open to new joiners until April 2018.

The Get to know your Pension campaign encourages people to find out how much State Pension they could get and when they could get it.

The new Get to know your Pension website helps with this by providing easy access to online forecasts and calculators. It also gives tailored information for people at different  stages in life, helping them to:

• check if there could be gaps in their National Insurance record
• trace lost pensions
• learn about the benefits of a workplace pension

The website is also available in Welsh 

Please take a look at the Get to know your Pension website.

Please click here:

In general, the costs of childcare or home help services are not tax deductible, although there has been some debate about whether they should be.  In his 1990 Budget the then Chancellor John Major announced that from April 1990 employees would not be taxed on the benefits they received from using a nursery or play scheme provided by their employer. 

In its 2004 Budget the Labour Government announced a new tax relief for childcare benefits: from April 2005, employees would be entitled to receive up to £50 a week of childcare free of income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) where their employers contracted with an approved child carer or provided childcare vouchers for the purpose of paying an approved child carer.  Employers would be entitled to a similar relief for the first £50 of this type of childcare for the purposes of both secondary Class 1 NICs and Class 1A NICs. This limit was increased by £5 to £55 from April 2006.

In September 2009 the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, proposed that this relief should be withdrawn to fund the extension of free childcare for two-year olds.  The proposal proved highly contentious and in December 2009 Mr Brown announced that the relief would be retained, but, from April 2011, it would be restricted in value so that all new voucher recipients would get the same amount of tax relief, to ensure that higher rate taxpayers did not benefit disproportionately.

In its first Budget in June 2011 the Coalition Government confirmed that it would take this measure forward. The new income tax limit applies to higher rate and additional rate taxpayers who join employer supported childcare schemes on or after 6 April 2011.

This note discusses the introduction of the existing tax relief for employer-provided childcare and the case there has been made for a wider tax relief, before looking at the decision to restrict the value of this relief for those on higher incomes from 2011/12.

Two other Commons Briefing papers give an overview of Government policy over this period.

In the 2013 Budget the Coalition Government announced it would introduce a new scheme, Tax-Free Childcare, from autumn 2015. To be eligible, families would have to have both parents in work, with each earning less than £150,000 a year, and not in receipt of support for these costs from tax credits or, when introduced, Universal Credit.  Following a consultation exercise, in March 2014 the Government published further details. Eligible families would be entitled to receive 20% of their yearly childcare costs, up to a maximum of £10,000 for each child: i.e., support worth up to £2,000 per child each year. Initially the intention was that the scheme would be rolled out to all eligible families with children under 12 within the first year of its operation. Tax relief on employer provided childcare would only continue to be given to existing members of employer schemes, though they would be able to move to this new scheme if they wished.

There have been considerable delays in the implementation of the new scheme. The Government now plans that all eligible parents will be able to apply by the end of March 2018, and that the existing employer supported childcare schemes will remain open to new entrants until April 2018. These developments are covered in a second Commons Briefing paper: Childcare Vouchers and Tax-Free Childcare - Frequently Asked Questions, CBP8055, 11 January 2018.