Tag Archives: Poverty and Social Mobility

We tend to think of the ‘bank of mum and dad’ as being about better-off families helping their children through university or with the cost of a wedding. This is certainly widespread. But a report launched today by the Social Market Foundation reveals it is a prevalent and often forgotten source of support among low income families too.

The ‘bank of mum and dad’ is a crucial source of welfare for people on low incomes and those not able to access it are at greater risk of isolation and poverty, the Social Market Foundation reveals today.

With manifestos on everyone’s minds at the party conferences this year, our quest for catchy policy ideas has been a leitmotif of the SMF’s conference activity.

SMF Deputy Director Nigel Keohane responds to a new report from the National Audit Office on the progress of the Government’s flagship welfare reform programme.

Radical thinking is required to restore public support for the welfare state and get people saving adequately, former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Lord John Hutton claims in the foreword to the SMF think tank’s new publication Beveridge Rebooted.

New official figures on the second year of the Government's flagship back-to-work scheme, the Work Programme, demonstrate that while performance is greatly improved on the first year, many providers are still at risk of contract termination due to under-performance against arbitrary DWP criteria, according to the Social Market Foundation.

SMF initial reaction to the Work Programme statistics, published on 27 June 2013.

The Social Market Foundation responds to Spending Review 2013, which was predominantly about departmental spending in the 2015-16 fiscal year. The SMF argues that what it actually tells us most about is how tough politics is about to become.

On Thursday 27 June the Government will release the latest performance figures on its flagship back-to-work scheme, the Work Programme. This short briefing explores the likely performance levels we will see ifrom the second year of the scheme.