Welfare

1 in 20 users of domestic abuse scheme affected by bedroom tax

Almost 1 in 20 households using the Sanctuary Scheme for people at risk of domestic violence have been affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy, reports Lorcan James. Figures obtained from FOI requests to 79 Local Authorities show that from 2009, 281 households have been affected, meaning an average loss of £14 pounds […]

The week in welfare reform – roundup

  Once again we’ve rounded up some of the key updates from @HMIwelfare over the last week into a Flipboard magazine. Stories include unfit royal housing benefit property, claims that food poverty is a bigger public health concern than diet, how the sale of small council homes condemned thousands to the bedroom tax, and an equality analysis of […]

In just 5 minutes you’ll know more about UK immigration than most of the public

In this post, originally published on Immigration and Services, Ajmeri Walele looks at the facts around immigration. Since 1945, immigration in the United Kingdom has increased, in particular from the Republic of Ireland, but also from former colonies of the British Empire such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Hong Kong and the Caribbean. The latest […]

4 unmissable graphs of the UK’s housing bubble

From the construction and housing booms to price changes and renting versus buying, Tom Davies presents 4 charts to explain what’s happened to housing. 1    Bursting point? Another housing bubble  How unaffordable can it get?  House prices in the UK continue  to increase. Median earnings only increased by 57% from 1996 to 2012, but house prices […]

The week in #welfarereform according to @HMIwelfare

We’ve rounded up 10 key welfare stories from the past week and put them in a Flipboard magazine. Click on the image below to enjoy – and scroll down to move from page to page. You can find a longer list of recent coverage on our Pinboard bookmarks. If you think we’ve missed anything, let us […]

Destroying the Myth: Kayleigh Garthwaite’s tips for welfare bloggers

Kayleigh Garthwaite is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Geography at Durham University – and the author of the eye-opening blog post The ‘scrounger’ myth is causing real suffering to many in society, In this Q&A Kayleigh gives her tips on blogging about benefits and talks further about the myths surrounding welfare. What advice would […]

25 Twitter accounts to follow in 2014 on welfare reform – numbers 11-25

We’ve compiled a list of 25 useful Twitter accounts if you want to follow welfare reform. Yesterday we revealed the first 10 – here are the other 15… Follow them all – and over 40 others – as a list here. 11.Samuel Miller @Hephaestus7 Disability specialist Samuel Miller is taking the government to court in The […]

25 Twitter accounts to follow in 2014 on welfare reform – the first 10

We’ve compiled a list of 25 useful Twitter accounts if you want to follow welfare reform. In this post we reveal the first 10… Follow them all – and over 40 others – as a list here. How we did it: finding Twitter accounts to follow 1. Joseph Rowntree Fdn.  @jrf_uk,   @Helen_Barnard I shouldn’t have […]

5 ways to find Twitter accounts covering the welfare field (or any other)

We’ve been compiling a list of people on Twitter to follow on welfare-related issues. Here’s how we did it: (If you need to know how to create a Twitter list, see Twitter’s guide) 1. Search Twitter biographies only The quickest way to kick off your Twitter list is to search Twitter biographies for users who […]

How to keep track of welfare issues part 3: data and documents

In the first part of this series I looked at bringing general news sources and blogs into one place; in the second I looked at social media discussions. This final part looks at how to know what government departments are saying and doing, even if no one is reporting it. Data and documents provide some of […]