DR CHRIS EDWARDS, 27 NOVEMBER 2012 A 60 PAGE REPORT SUMMARISED IN 33 SLIDES 1 The benefit cuts bombshell – a report commissioned by NCAN

The context of the cuts 2 The financial crisis of ; caused by the incompetent regulation of the banks; …. followed by…. The General Election of May 2010 and the emergence of the Coalition Government Coalition Agreement; “deficit reduction is the most urgent issue facing Britain”

The Austerity Package 3 The Budget and Spending Review of 2010 announce cuts in government spending and increases in taxes amounting to £79 billion by , consisting of… 1. £10 billion from savings in interest on debt; 2. £3 billion from increases in taxes; 3. £18 billion from cuts in benefits; and, 4. £48 billion from cuts in other government spending

What this report looks at 4 The cuts in benefits administered by the tax office (child benefit and tax credits) and by the DWP The base year of the study is when these benefits totalled £191 billion or just over half of all social expenditure (£353 billion) in the UK Most of the difference of £162 billion consists of expenditure on health (£121 billion) and personal social services (£32 billion) £191 billion is 13% of GDP

The cuts in benefits 5 The cuts in benefits looked at here total £15.6 billion after taking off the cuts in public service pensions (which are excluded) The cut of £15.6 billion in is 8% of the total benefits in Over the four years, the cuts amount to £36.3 billion or 19% of the £191 billion

Timeline of main changes … … Migration fro IB to ESA Housing Benefit Changes Migration from DLA to PIP Social Fund to County Council Total Benefit Cap Universal Credit Implementation Local Council Tax Rebate

The timing of the benefit cuts 7

The composition of the benefit cuts 8

The major cuts – disabled people 9 Total in = £32 billion Cut in as a percentage of = 14% How? 1. Switch to CPI from RPI for uprating benefits 2. A reassessment of IB and switch to ESA using the WCA 3. A new PIP to replace the current DLA from April 2013 for people of working age

No cuts – the elderly 10 Total in = £81 billion Increase in benefits in of 0.6% How? 1. Uprating of pensions by best of CPI, RPI and earnings (the triple guarantee) - gain to pensioners of £500 million in No net change in pension credit and winter fuel payments combined (changes but they cancel each other out)

Council tax benefits (1 of 2).… 11 Total in of £5 billion Cut in of 8% How? 1. In April 2013, Local Authorities will have to implement their own schemes of Council Tax Support (CTS) to replace Council Tax Benefit (CTB) 2. In doing so, the LAs will face a cut of 10% (very recently changed to 8%) of the unreformed CTB.

… but little localism (2 of 2) 12 LAs cannot reduce pensioners’ benefits so the whole adjustment falls on those of working age or other Council expenditure; Council tax has been frozen for and will be frozen through (for the fourth year) Post-code lottery; possibly back to something like a poll tax (with small CT charges) and a resulting rise in administrative costs for Councils.

Housing Benefit 13 Total of £21 billion in Cut in benefits in of £2.3 billion (11%) How? (8 major changes)

Child Benefit 14 Total in = £12 billion Cut of 29% or £3.5 billion in How? 1. Freezing of child benefit for 3 years from (£1.0 billion) 2. Taxing away of child benefits for higher rate taxpayers from January 2013 (£2.5 billion)

Tax credits 15 Total of £28 billion in Cut of 14% or £3.6 billion How? 1. £2.2 billion net cuts announced in June Budget of 2010, plus … 2... further net cuts announced in the Spending Review of 2010 of £1.1 billion plus …. 3...a further cut of £0.3 billion announced in the Autumn Statement of 2011

Other benefits 16 Total in = £12 billion (including Income Support for lone parents and carers (£2.9 bn), JSA (£4.5 bn), Maternity Pay (£2.4 bn) and others £2.2 bn. Cut, including a halving of the Social Fund (to be decentralised to the County Council but not ring- fenced), averages 16% in

The Universal Credit (1 of 3) 17 First claims under the Universal Credit in October 2013 leading to all claimants being included by the end of 2017 What is the UC? 1. A radical reform integrating six core benefits (income-related JSA, income-related ESA, income support child tax credit, working tax credit and housing benefit) into one monthly payment paid to a single recipient 2. Child benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Support) will remain separate.

The Universal Credit (2 of 3) 18 Claimed advantages 1. Improvement of work incentives – “yes for single earners, but not for working couples and even for single earners, the picture is confused by CTB being outside” (IFS); and are the jobs available? 2. Simplification and reduced administrative costs – but will the IT system work? Probably not, says Frank Field (and many other doubters); call for delay (Work and Pensions Select Committee, 22 November 2012)

Universal Credit (3 or 3) 19 Other advantages of UC? 1. Will reduce the total of unclaimed benefits (IFS) – but doubtful if the Treasury sees it this way since unclaimed benefits total between £15 bn and £21 bn. compared to losses from fraud and official errors of about £2 bn; 2. Some gains, some losses to different groups according to the IFS but net effect ignored here because net gains unlikely to be realised by

The equalising role of benefits 20 Source; ONS (ETB) for

The distribution of benefits and cuts in benefits 21

The poorest lose out 22 The poorest 40% of UK households have an average disposable income of £14,250 a year In their loss from the cuts in benefits will be £8.2 billion. This is £780 per household or about £15 per week. Over the four years, the loss for this same 10.5 million households will average £8.65 per week

The situation in Norfolk? 23 Norfolk is a County with a lower average income – about 10-15% lower - than for the UK as a whole …. … but it is not a County of great deprivation. In England there are a little over 3,000 LSOAs (Lower Super Output Areas or LSOAs) which are the 10% most deprived in England. Of Norfolk’s 530 LSOAs, 29 are among these most deprived. All except one of these are in three of the seven Districts of Norfolk (Great Yarmouth, KLWN and Norwich)

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Norfolk – the benefit cuts? In total 25 Total benefits to Norfolk in = £2.7 billion (1.4% of the total for about 1.4% of the UK population) The cuts in benefits for Norfolk in = £181 million or about 7% of total benefits. Loss of £9.36 per household per week The cuts in benefits over the four years will total about £421 million or £1,132 per household

Norfolk – the benefit cuts? By Local Authority 26

Norfolk – the benefit cuts? By income? 27 Unfortunately there is no reliable income distribution data for Norfolk But we do know that 19% of households in Norfolk live in poverty – that is below 60% of the median income – which means below £10,000 per year 19% = 70,000 of the 372,000 households in Norfolk

Norfolk – the benefit cuts? For households in poverty 28 In , these 70,000 poverty-stricken households will lose £15 per week or about 8.7% of their income in the base year ( ) Over the four years, these 70,000 poverty- stricken households will lose an average of £8.65 per week – yes, over the four years.

The cuts are clearly not fair… are they efficient? 29 The answer is no. The government is not achieving its objective of cutting the deficit In the first 7 months of this tax year ( ), net borrowing by the public sector was £5.0 billion up on the same period of last year (ONS, November 2012). At a time when households are cutting expenditure to cut their personal debt - when the USA and the Eurozone is growing slowly, if at all - this is when the UK government chooses to cut its expenditure.

Implications for advice agencies? 30 Stark prospects 1. Poverty increasing; increase in demand for Norwich Foodbank; homelessness up by 9% (Shelter); a rise in demand for high interest credit; vulnerable not protected (a NEF November report); rise in number of children going without food (Action for Children); 2. Demand for advice services already up (CAB in Haringey – increase of 200% in demand for advice in two years). 3. And yet the cuts in benefits have hardly started - more madness is yet to come with 77% of the cuts in benefits due in the next two tax years - that is, April 2013 to April 2015

Need for more equality not less 31 A prize for the first person to guess who said the following; “Research by Richard Wilkinson and Katie Pickett has shown that among the richest countries, it’s the more unequal ones that do worse according to almost every quality indicator. In ‘The Spirit Level’ they show that per capita GDP is much less significant for a country’s life expectancy, crime levels, literacy and health than the size of the gap between the richest and poorest in the population. So the best indicator of a country’s rank on these measures is not the difference in wealth between them, but the difference in wealth within them” So the more equal a country is, the better off it is. By this criterion, the cuts are bound to be counter-productive.