Last night saw a lecture and debate on welfare with Liam Byrne MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) at the London School of Economics (LSE). The event was tweeted with the hashtag #LSEwelfare and liveblogged at unofficial LSE student magazine The Penguin (wait 15 seconds for the full coverage to appear).
All posts by Paul Bradshaw
Link: migrants and benefits
Here’s an informative post by Jonathan Portes on a piece in the Telegraph by government ministers (and related report on the BBC) on the 371,000 migrants claiming benefits.
The figures are the “first ever estimates” on migrant benefit claims, but the reporting of the whole numbers, argues Portes, is misleading: Continue reading Link: migrants and benefits
Data: disability and other hate crime
Douglas Blane tweeted a link to some general stats on the Disability Hate Crime site that I thought I’d post on, as it happened to coincide with some other data that I recently stumbled across. Continue reading Data: disability and other hate crime
VIDEO: Heather Brooke on investigating health, welfare and crime
As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate, Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on choosing the right organisations to send your FOI request to, and how to frame it most effectively.
Data: limited housing availability following benefit caps
The Guardian is following the caps to housing benefits with data on the limited housing now available across the country to “job seekers [, the] disabled, lone parents, others unable to work such as pensioners or those in low paid employment.”:
“The study shows in many parts of the country there will be thousands more welfare claimants than there are properties that can be afforded by benefits alone – raising the possibility that the poor will be compelled to migrate to “benefit ghettoes” along the coast or in the north. Try for yourself by clicking on the accompanying map – for example Brighton and Hove shows”
Help Me Investigate Health contributor Carl Plant has already visualised some of the data here.
James Cattell’s idea for a benefit calculator
James Cattell has written a blog post outlining the idea behind using data skills to produce a benefits calculator. His point is simple: the benefits system is so complicated that even experts need constant retraining. Is this a problem that data journalism can help solve?
MAP: The north-south divide in travel assistance for jobseekers
Jobseekers in the south east received a disproportionate amount of assistance in travelling to job interviews, according to data visualised by Carl Plant. Continue reading MAP: The north-south divide in travel assistance for jobseekers
Links: The DWP Examinations forums and YouTube channel
Just thought I’d welcome visitors to this site coming from the DWPexaminations message boards. The boards feature a number of threads that may be of interest if you’re looking into Atos medical assessment centres and the stories of those who’ve been through them.
In addition there’s a YouTube channel aggregating videos from a message from Michael Moore to a Guardian film of a protest against Atos (embedded above).
If you know of any other communities discussing Atos or other welfare-related issues, please let us know.
Data and link: Questions to ask about benefit fraud in Nottingham
NCCLOLS reports on the need for more rigorous reporting in the Nottingham Post following a story on an increase in benefit fraud prosecutions, with plenty of useful links to data that the newspaper could have used:
Continue reading Data and link: Questions to ask about benefit fraud in Nottingham
Link: The ESA ‘Fit For Work’ vicious circle
Channel 4 News reports on the “rocketing” numbers of appeals for employment and support allowance (ESA) being heard by the Tribunal Service, which have quadrupled in two years, “from 68,000 in 2009 to a projected 240,000 by the end of this financial year.” The cost to the taxpayer: “£80m and rising”.
“Channel 4 News contacted 30 advice centres across Britain and every single one said they had clients on their second or even third appeal. Jude Hawes is the welfare benefits manager at Stoke CAB.
“She says every day they’re dealing with clients appealing against ESA decisions, many of them for a second time. “I’ve worked in welfare benefits since 1983 and… we’ve never had one benefit one sort of appeal that just dominates the landscape like this.””
You can still catch the broadcast on Channel 4’s Watch Again service here.