Daily Archives: 17/10/2011

Conservative conference: Ministers return to same old story of benefits abuse

Ministers have used their party’s annual conference to reinforce the message that many disabled people claiming out-of-work benefits are “abusing” the system.
Iain Duncan Smith told the Conservative conference in Manchester that his party had promised to “start dealing with” the numbers of people on long-term incapacity benefit (IB), which he said was “too often abused [...]

Conservative conference: Concerns over Work Programme transparency

The government’s new programme designed to support disabled and other people into work is excluding voluntary sector providers at the expense of the private sector, a minister has heard.
Lord Freud, the Conservative welfare reform minister, was told that charities were already withdrawing from the new Work Programme, which was suffering from a “serious lack of [...]