Latest Articles By Simon Collyer

Specialist Employability Support (SES) is a new tailored support service for unemployed disabled people that will help them move closer to the labour market. This new service began last month and is being delivered by six national SES providers. Four...

The next few years could spell trouble for the Tories. Huge cuts have to be made in public spending. Then there’s the referendum on membership of the European Union, probably in 2017, which cause all kinds of dissent in the party. Meanwhile, the...

The Tories "cannot ignore the gulf in pay packets that yawns wider" every year, Boris Johnson has told the Conservative Party conference. He said the government must support the "hardest working and lowest paid" as "we reform welfare and we cut taxes...

Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, told the Tory Conference in his speech that under Labour disability benefits treated the disabled as “passive victims” and that his reforms were designed to change this. Duncan Smith kicked off...

Plaid Cymru has said the Chancellor’s trickery on tax credits is beginning to unravel as senior Conservative politicians begin to realise the damaging implications of the cuts, and has once again called on George Osborne to abandon the policy. Member...

The Sun are campaigning against the changes to Tax Credits. This issue could turn out to be Camerons Poll Tax. 

The Taxpayers' Alliance are recommending cuts to pensioner’s benefits.  Many of those hit by a cut to the winter fuel allowance might "not be around" at the next election, said Alex Wild of the Taxpayers' Alliance. And others would for...

From Thursday 1 October 2015, the adult rate of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) will rise by 20 pence from £6.50 to £6.70 per hour, as recommended by the Low Pay Commission (LPC) in March 2015 this year. From 1 October 2015: the adult rate will incre...

Thinking of starting your own business? From 6 April 2015, all new claimants who are using self-employed work to meet the qualifying remunerative work test for WTC, must show that they are trading on a commercial basis and their business is done...

Index of employment since Q1 2008, seasonally adjusted, Q1 2008 = 100 Fig 1. Fig 1. Figures from the ONS shows the initial recovery in employment has been largely a result of increases in the number of self-employed and part-time employees. The...