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The Social Security Advisory Committee are reviewing decision-making and mandatory reconsideration in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).  The review is part of the committee’s independent work programme and will focus on mandatory reconsideration before appeal. As part of NAWRA’s aims to challenge, influence and improve welfare rights policy and legislation, we undertook some research last year on mandatory reconsideration.  This fed into a blog on the NAWRA website as well as an …

SSAC review of decision making and MR Read more »

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Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is urgently looking for case studies following the Court of Appeal’s decision in R(Rutherford) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] EWCA Civ 29, which is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. They are keen to hear about any families with disabled children who have been affected by the housing benefit size criteria (or “the bedroom tax”) because they need an extra room for a carer or carers to stay overnight.  …

CPAG is looking for bedroom tax cases (urgent) Read more »

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Thanks to everybody who came along to the NAWRA meeting at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland on Friday, and to Sunderland City Council’s welfare rights team for hosting us. Prof Ted Schrecker, Professor of Global Health Policy at Durham University, delivered the Phil Hanns memorial lecture on how neoliberalist politics and economics has affected the most vulnerable in society.  Dr David Webster from Glasgow University updated us on his analysis of benefit sanction statistics.  There were popular workshops on …

Notes from Sunderland meeting Read more »

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Many thanks to all those NAWRA members who contributed to the CPAG survey on reasons for food bank use. The response rate was fantastic, with more than 200 advisers filling in the survey. This formed the biggest part of a submission to Feeding Britain’s update report on behalf of twelve charities and faith groups, brought together under the banner of a working group on benefit administration. This in turn was widely cited in the report itself, a lot of whose …

Evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on hunger Read more »