#dwp-review

#dwp-review

In the UK, Statutory Maternity Pay is paid for up to 39 of those 52 weeks. For the first six weeks, you get 90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) and then £187.18 or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks. The final 13 of those 52 weeks are unpaid.

Up to 21,000 asylum seekers who have waited for a year for their claims to be processed could be allowed to enter the jobs market so they can support themselves, the Home Office has said, as part of a package of measures to be announced on Thursday. As the government seeks to empty asylum hotels, claimants who break the law, work illegally or are found to have enough assets to live without support will from June be ejected and lose their support payments.

Total number of recipients lower than in 2015, figures show More than 4,000 people who claimed illness benefit over a decade ago are still getting the payment.

One in three graduates who are out of work and claiming benefits say poor health is preventing them from finding employment, as new analysis highlights mounting concern over the value of some university degrees and the UK's approach to skills training. Research by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) shows that 707,000 graduates are now claiming benefits, a 46 per cent increase since 2019.

The chair of the Public Accounts Committee sought reassurance that the Cabinet Office had shared details of Capita's performance on the CSPS before the DWP made its award to the outsourcing firm to provide HR, finance, and payroll services to the DWP, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Pip is designed to support disabled people with the additional costs of daily living and mobility, yet for many claimants it has instead become a source of prolonged uncertainty, financial hardship and distress. Waiting months and in some cases more than a year for a decision can push people into debt, rent arrears and poverty, especially as Pip unlocks other support such as carer's allowance.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

More than 300,000 children living in the UK could be left "in limbo" if the Home Office proceeds with its shake-up of legal migration rules, a think tank has warned. The Home Secretary outlined proposals in November to end automatic settlement status after five years. This means 1.35 million legal migrants already in the country nearly a quarter of them children, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) would be forced to wait longer for settled status. Under the proposed changes, migrants would apply for settled status after 10 years, though this could be fast-tracked or extended based on their "contributions" to the UK.

The UK's poorest families are getting poorer, with record numbers of people classed as in very deep poverty meaning their annual household incomes fail to cover the cost of food, energy bills and clothing, according to analysis. Although overall relative poverty levels have flatlined in recent years at about 21% of the population, life for those below the breadline has got materially worse as they try to subsist on incomes many thousands of pounds beneath the poverty threshold.

Disabled people are enduring average waits exceeding 100 days for crucial support applications designed to help them secure or maintain employment, a new report reveals. A leading disability equality charity has condemned the findings from the National Audit Office (NAO), describing the public spending watchdog's report as "laying bare the brutal reality for disabled people trying to get into and stay in work."

The winning supplier will be asked to build an AI platform capable of so-called natural language call steering and host it in a UK-shored dedicated cloud environment. The DWP is the UK's biggest public service department, managing the State Pension and working-age and disability benefits for around 20 million citizens. Calls are currently answered by advisors within the authority's contact centers on one of the largest call-handling platforms in Europe.

The UK population is estimated to have grown by nearly three million between 2020 and 2025, official figures show, not by 12 million as stated by Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe. In an interview for Sky News broadcast on Wednesday, Sir Jim said: The population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it's 70 million that's 12 million people. It had climbed to just under 69.5 million by mid-2025, an increase since 2020 of almost 2.8 million.

Britain is getting older and sicker, while a greater share of its population has a disability. While these trends affect the whole of society, they are starkest in the poorest half of working-age families across the country. While we talk a lot about the effects of ageing and ill-health, the implications on demand for unpaid care is largely absent from political debate.

"The government has kicked the can down the road for months, only to arrive at exactly the same conclusion it always wanted. This is a disgraceful political choice by a small group of very powerful people who have decided the harm suffered by millions of ordinary women simply does not matter."