A plan is being put together by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to overhaul the benefits system in order to provide greater incentives for people to go out to work and increased sanctions for those unwilling to do so.
A key part of the plan is the introduction of a single ‘universal credit’ which will consolidate more than 30 current work-related benefits such as tax credits, jobseekers allowance and employment support allowance.
The plan is that people claiming benefit who take on a job will keep more of their benefits income and for longer than they do now, but will face losing benefits if they refuse a job.
Mr Duncan Smith called the existing system of benefits hugely complex and costly to administer, vulnerable to fraud, and suggested it deterred people from finding a job and extending their hours.
The new rules are likely to apply for new recipients of benefit by 2013, with a target of moving all recipients onto it in the first few years of the next Parliament after 2015.
A key part of the plan is the introduction of a single ‘universal credit’ which will consolidate more than 30 current work-related benefits such as tax credits, jobseekers allowance and employment support allowance.
The plan is that people claiming benefit who take on a job will keep more of their benefits income and for longer than they do now, but will face losing benefits if they refuse a job.
Mr Duncan Smith called the existing system of benefits hugely complex and costly to administer, vulnerable to fraud, and suggested it deterred people from finding a job and extending their hours.
The new rules are likely to apply for new recipients of benefit by 2013, with a target of moving all recipients onto it in the first few years of the next Parliament after 2015.
