#department-for-work-and-pensions

#department-for-work-and-pensions

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, stated that the priorities showed the agency was in danger of being a dead duck before it even begins. For too long, workers have borne the brunt of disreputable employers who have had carte blanche.

Capita did not deliver the full levels of IT, automation, and portal functionality at go-live. This significantly impacted Capita's ability to manage the volumes of work inherited and the new work delivered since go-live.

In the UK, Statutory Maternity Pay is paid for up to 39 of those 52 weeks. For the first six weeks, you get 90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) and then £187.18 or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks. The final 13 of those 52 weeks are unpaid.

One in three graduates who are out of work and claiming benefits say poor health is preventing them from finding employment, as new analysis highlights mounting concern over the value of some university degrees and the UK's approach to skills training. Research by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) shows that 707,000 graduates are now claiming benefits, a 46 per cent increase since 2019.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Pip is designed to support disabled people with the additional costs of daily living and mobility, yet for many claimants it has instead become a source of prolonged uncertainty, financial hardship and distress. Waiting months and in some cases more than a year for a decision can push people into debt, rent arrears and poverty, especially as Pip unlocks other support such as carer's allowance.

More than 300,000 children living in the UK could be left "in limbo" if the Home Office proceeds with its shake-up of legal migration rules, a think tank has warned. The Home Secretary outlined proposals in November to end automatic settlement status after five years. This means 1.35 million legal migrants already in the country nearly a quarter of them children, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) would be forced to wait longer for settled status. Under the proposed changes, migrants would apply for settled status after 10 years, though this could be fast-tracked or extended based on their "contributions" to the UK.

Disabled people are enduring average waits exceeding 100 days for crucial support applications designed to help them secure or maintain employment, a new report reveals. A leading disability equality charity has condemned the findings from the National Audit Office (NAO), describing the public spending watchdog's report as "laying bare the brutal reality for disabled people trying to get into and stay in work."

The winning supplier will be asked to build an AI platform capable of so-called natural language call steering and host it in a UK-shored dedicated cloud environment. The DWP is the UK's biggest public service department, managing the State Pension and working-age and disability benefits for around 20 million citizens. Calls are currently answered by advisors within the authority's contact centers on one of the largest call-handling platforms in Europe.

My reforms changed the welfare system to make work pay and brought workless households to an all-time low. But because of the post-Covid collapse in vetting and rise of health-related welfare claims, millions of workers could take home more from welfare than wages after tax. This is an outrageous state of affairs. The system must stop writing off thousands every day and incentives to work need to be restored to end this ruinous waste of human potential.

The UK population is estimated to have grown by nearly three million between 2020 and 2025, official figures show, not by 12 million as stated by Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe. In an interview for Sky News broadcast on Wednesday, Sir Jim said: The population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it's 70 million that's 12 million people. It had climbed to just under 69.5 million by mid-2025, an increase since 2020 of almost 2.8 million.

Britain is getting older and sicker, while a greater share of its population has a disability. While these trends affect the whole of society, they are starkest in the poorest half of working-age families across the country. While we talk a lot about the effects of ageing and ill-health, the implications on demand for unpaid care is largely absent from political debate.

Under existing rules, savers can draw on their private pension from age 55, 11 years before the state pension age, which is due to rise from 66 to 67 this year. Up to a quarter of a private pension, capped at £268,275, can be taken tax-free from that point. In a new intervention, the think tank said ministers should consider limiting access to private pension wealth before state pension age, either by raising the minimum access age or by reducing the amount that can be withdrawn tax-free.