Commentary & Podcasts

Fraud is now the most common crime in England and Wales, costing the UK economy £137bn each year. In this blog, Richard Hyde, Scott Corfe and Bill Anderson-Samways examine the inadequacy of police resource dedicated to tackling the problem, and call on the Government to take a comprehensive “systems approach” to tackling fraud, enacting reforms that can endure over decades.

Despite the health, social, and environmental benefits of high-quality housing developments, delivering healthy and sustainable homes and neighbourhoods remains a challenging task. In this blog, Dr Caglar Koksal outlines how housing developers and local authorities can work together to create healthy, high-quality homes while also addressing long-standing health and housing inequalities.

A few weeks back, our chief economist Aveek Bhattacharya suggested that the Government should respond to rising household costs – in particular higher energy prices – with a ‘cost-of living-bonus’. The scheme the Treasury decided to go with is decidedly different. Drawing on modelling by Policy Engine UK, Bhattacharya compares the two plans, finding that the SMF's proposal is better targeted and reduces poverty more than the Government's scheme.

Nicky Fairbairn, a Real Estate Partner and member of the Further Education team at International law firm DAC Beachcroft, asks Scott Corfe, Research Director at the Social Market Foundation, about the role civically minded universities will play in shaping the future of our town and city centres.

Aveek Bhattacharya examines possible policy suggestions that can be used to respond to the mounting cost-of-living crisis. Evaluating each, he finally calls on Rishi Sunak's Treasury to give direct cash transfers to households to give them the power to best decide how to respond to rising costs.