All about pensions

The focus is on public sector pensions today, but the proposals that have sparked today’s strikes are part of much UK Government’s plans for pensions and retirement.

Retirement age is at least as important an issue in today’s strike as…

Swansea – The engine

It is becoming increasingly clichéd to suggest that ‘city regions’ are the engines of modern day growth.  In a time of economic desperation, much of the welsh elite is increasingly placing its

AMs action on Legal Aid

If you are harassed by your landlord, lose your job or are refused a claim for a much-needed benefit, where would you go for advice and help to fight your case? A solicitor is the obvious answer, but unless…

All’s fair… or is it?

A sense of fairness underlies issues of social justice – what is deemed to be ‘fair’ within society reflects the allocation of education, jobs, money between different social groups. When we examine any issues within society it is clear…

Are they listening? DLA changes in Wales

Yesterday afternoon I joined over 150 people in the Aberafan Hotel in Port Talbot to meet the Parliamentary Select Committee on Work and Pensions on one of its rare forays away from Westminster. The Committee is scrutinising the…

The One Question Clipboard

How To Intelligently Regulate in the Public Sector

Why do social workers spend their time filling in forms, and ticking boxes? Do you think they would say that this is a good use of their time, if we asked them? …

Unfair changes to employment and support allowance

New research from the CRESR estimates that 1 million people will be forced to find work due to changes to incapacity benefits.  In a labour market short of several million jobs, these will increase poverty yet further. Moreover, they…

A stronger, louder voice against inequality

‘Equality’, as the Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen once pointed out, is the kind of thing which pretty much everyone favours in some form or other.  Even those least concerned about unequal distributions of wealth or opportunities…

Equality Impact Assessments

In gathering the data for the first Cuts Watch Cymru report (due out in January) we have been looking at the Equality Impact Assessments for the planned and already implemented welfare reforms. These reports are published for policy changes initiated by…

Cold and getting colder

With the arrival of winter temperatures this week the issue of Fuel Poverty has started to make its annual journey into the media. This time it will be given an even higher prominence due to recent energy price rises. The price rises and continued economic paralysis mean that fuel…