Anxious times for free advice providers

Rhondda Taff Citizens Advice Bureau (RTCAB) is based in Pontypridd but delivers advice services in almost 40 community venues across Rhondda Cynon Taff.  Our clients are amongst the most deprived in the social and economic factors measured…

Inequalities in Higher Education Still Exist

I attended the Social Research in Higher Education conference inNewportyesterday.  After reflecting on the conference this reinforced to me significance of inequalities in higher education, and in particular, those slightly more ‘hidden’ inequalities in access to the universities considered…

No win, No fee?

You couldn’t tell from the title or from the furore that focussed on Ken Clarke’s dropped plans for criminals who plead guilty to have their prison sentence halved, but alongside swingeing cuts to Legal Aid there is, hidden in…

An attack on basic employment rights?

In my Bevan Foundation blog just after the general election I suggested  the Conservatives were planning an attack on basic employment rights  and health and safety. I don’t like to say I told you so, but, I told you…

The critical role of advice!

Last week the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Select Committee met in Port Talbot to hear evidence on the Government’s proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance. They came to Neath Port Talbot, they said, because this was the local…

Encouraging innovation and avoiding uderspending

The cost of new medicines is often an argument in the ‘postcode prescribing’ debate, but new data suggests that most Health Boards inWaleshave been under-spending  their medicines budgets for several years.

Figures compiled for the ABPI show that the health…