Category Archives: Media Release

New SMF and JRF report shows Treasury could save £4.1 billion by helping in-work tax credit claimants earn £30 a week more.

April’s “pension freedom” reforms pose serious long-term financial risks to retirees and taxpayers, concludes a new SMF report that highlights the experience of pensioners in countries which already allow similar access to pension cash.

A new Social Market Foundation report entitled Should switch, don’t switch: Overcoming consumer inertia, supported by comparethemarket.com, launches at the Conservative party conference on Monday.

A new report, published today by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) and Big Society Capital, calls for the introduction of social pension funds in the UK to help finance projects such as social housing, rehabilitation initiatives, and environmental schemes.

In the report, Playing the Field: Consumers and competition in banking, the SMF finds that ‘multi-bankers’ embody a new form of competition in the British banking sector. These consumers are shopping around, trying out different options and forcing banks to offer them better value to retain their custom

The Social Market Foundation's response to the Summer Budget 2015. Here we look at the OBR's update to see whether the Chancellor's spending plans are on track, we examine the Living Wage announcement and see if this conflicts with changes to tax credits, we look into the changes to Higher Education funding and apprenticeships, and the government's green paper on pension and savings tax relief.

The government’s pledge to create three million new apprenticeships in the next five years, and also ensure they deliver the scientific and technical skills UK businesses needed to increase productivity, is ‘doomed’ to fail without major changes warns government skills adviser Professor Baroness Alison Wolf, in a report published today (2 July) by the Social Market Foundation (SMF).

The government will need to set out £45 billion of savings in annual public spending by 2018-19 in order to keep its spending plans on track, according to new analysis published today by the Social Market Foundation.

A general energy price freeze will stifle the strong competition in the industrial and commercial supply market by removing the demand side pressure suppliers currently face, leading to negative consequences for UK businesses warns think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF).