General Reports and Other Publications
PC&PE: Government's probation reforms designed for male offenders and ignore women in the Justice system, says Justice Committee.
IFS: From 2016
the existing 2-part state pension system is to be replaced by a new single-tier system, which is expected to be set at around £146 per week. A new report by researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), examines how the proposed reforms affect different types of individuals and contrasts the short- & long- term effects of the proposed reforms which are found to differ dramatically.
NAO: Government measures to reduce the liability of the state for supporting people in their retirement are being managed separately, without adequate consideration of their combined impact on the overall objective of increasing retirement incomes. According to a report by the National Audit Office, there is no overarching programme or single accountability for encouraging people to save for retirement.
JRF: Families with children who work full time could find themselves with less disposable cash than those who work part-time under Universal Credit, according to a new report for the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
The report is the first detailed look at how Universal Credit (UC) will affect take home pay once childcare costs have been taken into account. It assessed whether UC, being introduced from this year, will meet its central aim of making work pay, and enable low earning families to reach a minimum acceptable living standard.
NO: Bristol City Council has been failing in its legal duty to provide homeless people with the chance to appeal against its decisions not to house them, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has found. The problem was uncovered after a woman complained to the LGO that the council had not found her accommodation, 5 months after she contacted them for help.
NLGN: The New Local Government Network’s new research paper, Future Councillors: Where next for local politics, supported by Grant Thornton, maps the future role of elected members. As councils make the toughest financial decisions for a generation, they must redouble their efforts to improve electoral turnout and civic participation. Otherwise they could face paralysing local resistance from groups disconnected from the democratic process.
PC&PE: The House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has published a report which says ‘the UK Government must identify any shortfalls in the provision of services to the Armed Forces Community in Northern Ireland, and report on how these will be met’. The Committee also calls for closer engagement between the UK Government and Northern Ireland Executive on support for the Armed Forces Community.
IfG: Whitehall must slow down its plans to expand markets in public services because it lacks the expertise to design & manage complex contracts effectively, says the Institute for Government (IfG) in its new report Making Public Service Markets Work.
UKOC: Earlier this year UK online Centres held a series of focus groups all around the country to ask you, their centres what you think about what they do and how they do it. To prove to you that they have listened, they are publishing the Focus Groups Action Report, detailing exactly the actions they are taking following your feedback.
NO: A vulnerable young man became a victim twice ― of the crime committed against him and also of the service he received from a youth offending team and his local council. The young man was the victim of a robbery.
Trafford Youth Offending Team offered the young man the opportunity to take part in restorative justice, as set out in the Victims’ Code. This provides opportunities for those directly affected by a crime to agree on how to deal with the offence and its consequences. But both the Youth Offending Team (YOT) and Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council failed to handle the case properly.
Trafford Youth Offending Team offered the young man the opportunity to take part in restorative justice, as set out in the Victims’ Code. This provides opportunities for those directly affected by a crime to agree on how to deal with the offence and its consequences. But both the Youth Offending Team (YOT) and Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council failed to handle the case properly.
WAG: New research into the impact of changes to the welfare system suggests that women in Wales are more likely to be adversely affected and tend to lose the most compared to men. The findings published recently by the Welsh Government, highlight that single parents who are out of work, most of whom are women, are one of the groups that will incur the largest reduction in benefit & tax credit entitlements.
The report is the third in a series commissioned by the Welsh Government to better understand the impact of the UK Government’s welfare reforms on the people of Wales.
NAO: Government is continuing to make extensive use of higher rate telephone numbers for customer telephone lines, despite efforts by departments to reduce their use, according to the National Audit Office. Departments had inconsistent approaches towards the replacement of 0845 numbers with lower cost 03 alternatives.
