Friday Feature: “You can see me on you tube”

This is an edited version of a longer article that was originally published in the Bevan Foundation Review in Winter 2009. The Bevan Foundation Review is available to all our members, you can join the foundation here

Wales has a long history of struggle for democracy, for “llais y bobl”…

The state we’re in as consumers

Over the last month or so, Consumer Focus Wales has been taking the pulse of the nation.

Working with Participation Cymru, we have been to all corners of Wales to hear the consumer experiences of a diverse cross-section of Welsh society.

We’ve been asking people what they think of the…

Professors’ ‘Lifestyle choice’

When George Osborne talks about being out of work as a ‘lifestyle choice’ and Iain Ducan Smith refers to jobseekers needing to benefit from ‘the habits and routines of working life’, I suspect they don’t have in mind several Professors from the University of Glamorgan’s Business School. 

Yet Prof Paul…

Scrutiny gap on welfare reform in Wales

What ever your views about welfare reform, it is surely one of the hottest political issues around. Certainly the changes in prospect will affect all 366,000 of Wales’s working-age claimants, its 631,000 pensioners as well as the 7,500 people who work for the Department for Work and Pensions in…

Getting people and services online.

The Manifesto for a networked nation outlines the numerous benefits to all parties of mass use of the internet, and aims to create a rallying cry behind which government, the private sector and the third sector can unite behind the laudable goal of getting everyone online. The government…

Community Development must be at the forefront of services

Over the past decade or so, if you have been following the blogs and publications of what we might charitably call the ‘taxpayers perspective’, you will have come across the notion that town halls up and down the country have been squandering bucketloads of money on so called ‘non-jobs’….

Want to tackle child poverty? – then stop pitting our generations against each other

Child poverty is not just about children, nor is it just about children and parents. It’s about entire communities and all generations.  To tackle poverty effectively, we need to drive away from ways of thinking which examine poverty by age and result in age specific poverty strategies.

Last year, the…

Are you fit for work?

Today a new test of Incapacity Benefit claimants’ ability to work, the Work Capability Assessment, begjns. It is part of the package of reforms, many introduced by the last UK government,  designed to cut the numbers claiming benefit. Iain Duncan Smith has said he expects a quarter of claimants…

The welfare state really does go to the deserving

The cuts announced this week to some benefits have predictably focused attention once again on the UK’s allegedly unaffordable welfare bill. Aside from the discussions on child benefit, which you can find almost everywhere, was the additional announcement that no households, with the exception of those households containing people…

Putting Children First

The Assembly Government’s consultation period for its child poverty strategy has just closed. In the Autumn, the final strategy will be published. The decisions made between now and then will be critical for securing children and young people’s futures and safeguarding the needs of the next generation. Both End…