The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has today awarded a £38 million contract to modernise and grow the credit union industry.
The Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL) is the successful bidder to deliver the DWP’s project, which is designed to help meet the growing demand for modern banking products for people on low incomes.
The government's cap on benefits begins today across four London boroughs.
The cap means that families in Enfield, Haringey, Bromley and Croydon will not be able to claim more than £500 per week, whilst single people will not be able to claim more than £350.
Similarly, over a third (35 percent) of people in England currently receiving council tax benefit said they are not aware that they may be required to pay more or all of their council tax from this April. Over two thirds (68 percent) said that they would have to cut back on heating and food if they had to pay more toward their council tax bill.
Turn2us is running its third annual Benefits Awareness Month campaign this April to encourage people in financial need to check their entitlements and prepare for the significant changes to the benefit system that are coming into effect.
Council tenants in the London Borough of Harrow could receive up to £20,000 to move abroad to help free up much needed housing.
Harrow Council says the cash incentives would only be made to those who were "already considering moving abroad" and it would be "entirely their choice".
Iain Duncan Smith has been delivered a petition signed by over 455,000 people demanding that he live on £53 per week.
The Works and Pensions Secretary claimed last week that he could live on the sum after market trader David Bennet told him it was all he'd be left with after his housing benefit was cut.
The bedroom tax will cost Northern Ireland more to implement than it will save in housing benefit, new figures have revealed.
According to a joint study by the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), though the bedroom tax aims to cut the benefits bill by £17m, it will cost £21m to implement.
The government has underestimated the combined impact of three different benefit cuts coming into effect at once, a think tank has claimed.
The New Policy Institute today publishes a report looking at the impact of the bedroom tax, council tax benefit changes and the overall benefit cap.
George Osborne has defended the bedroom tax, saying it is ‘only fair’ to treat social housing tenants and private renters the same.
The chancellor of the exchequer, speaking to supermarket workers in Kent, said: ‘We have got 1.8 million families waiting for social housing and yet there are eight million spare rooms across the sector.
A new study has revealed that more than half (56 percent) of housing associations and almost a third (30 percent) of councils are worried that their tenants still know hardly anything about the government's welfare changes.
The joint research by the Chartered Institute of Housing South West (CIH SW) and the National Housing Federation (NHF) found that of all the reforms, social landlords expect direct payments to have the biggest impact on their tenants.
Crisis has called on the government to urgently reverse cuts made to housing benefit as new figures reveal a 10 percent rise in homelessness since 2011.
And the official statistics, released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), show that the number of households accepted as homeless and owed the main homelessness duty over the last two years has risen by 26 percent.