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campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

BBC Newsnight

Mr Duncan Smith's office has now confirmed to Newsnight that he did not get any qualifications there either, but that he completed six separate courses lasting a few days each, adding up to about a month in total.
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Doesn't say what courses though. Maybe first aid course, H&S course...:hmm:
 
UC benefit cap delayed by 6 months cos of IT problems, except in 4 London boroughs where pilots will still go ahead from April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/dec/22/benefit-cap-delay-dwp-criticism?CMP=twt_gu

Ministers are facing accusations of chaos over welfare reform after announcing that the introduction of the government's flagship benefits cap of £500 a week will be delayed across most of the country for up to six months.

The hold-up – believed to be the result of concerns over computer software – took councils, job centres and MPs by surprise and raised questions about the timetable for wider changes being planned to the entire benefits system.

Local authorities were told in May by welfare reform minister Lord Freud that the £26,000-a-year cap would come into effect in April 2013 and that, from that date, "the state will no longer pay households more than the average wage in benefits."

However, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) slipped out an announcement on Thursday saying that, on that date, the cap would only be applied in four London boroughs: Bromley, Croydon, Enfield and Haringey. The department said it would subsequently be rolled out nationally by the end of September.
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So no good news for many Londoners, who are likely to be the most affected by the cap, but the rest of us get a breathing space, and more knowledge that the IT side of UC is going wrong and hope that it'll all fall apart...
 
BigTom said:
UC benefit cap delayed by 6 months cos of IT problems, except in 4 London boroughs where pilots will still go ahead from April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/dec/22/benefit-cap-delay-dwp-criticism?CMP=twt_gu



So no good news for many Londoners, who are likely to be the most affected by the cap, but the rest of us get a breathing space, and more knowledge that the IT side of UC is going wrong and hope that it'll all fall apart...
Click to expand...

Loads of areas around the country are affected by the bedroom tax already though and more to come in April.
 
Rutita1 said:
:facepalm:

Double facepalm because the article isn't available for all to read! :/

Can anyone here oblige?
Click to expand...
G4S, the company at the centre of the Olympics security fiasco, is set to win a role in implementing the government’s contentious and complex changes to child benefit and the universal credit.
The FTSE 100 company is among six selected to run call centres that will deal with queries on the most far-reaching change to welfare benefits for the low-paid and unemployed in decades. The contracts – to be announced in February – are worth a total £150m over four years. G4S, Serco, Capita, Balfour Beatty and two other companies were selected from a total of 30 applicants by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The inclusion of G4S suggests that the government has ignored MPs’ calls for the company to be blacklisted from public sector work, after it failed to provide 10,400 security guards for the London Olympics. The company has agreed to reimburse the military after the army was called in to make up the shortfall, but remains locked in negotiations with the London Olympics organising committee over how much it will be paid for the botched security contract.
Sean Williams, managing director of G4S employment support services, said the call-centre decision showed “we can still win business ... We’ve done a massive amount of work for the government over the past few years and we hope the government recognises that.”
Universal credit, under which six benefits will be incorporated into a single payment, is due to be rolled out over the next five years. Pilot projects will start in the spring in advance of a national rollout next autumn.
Call centres will be established to help employers and claimants deal with the changes. They will also deal with landmark changes to child benefit, expected early next year, as well as child maintenance payments.
Ian Mulhern, director of the Social Market Foundation, said: “The universal credit was supposed to be made simple by the amount of online contact but the complexity of claimants’ lives and businesses’ circumstances is likely to make phone contact with the DWP integral to the running of the system.”
G4S, which also runs prison and asylum services for the UK government, was one of the more successful providers of the welfare-to-work programme. It ranked fifth out of 18 suppliers in finding employment for jobseekers during the first year of the scheme’s operation, according to recently published government figures.
The company lost two directors in the wake of the Olympics fiasco as an expected £10m profit on the £284m trophy contract turned into a £50m loss. But Nick Buckles, chief executive, has retained the investors’ support and remains at the helm of the global security group, which operates in 125 countries worldwide.
 
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