New Deal to continue as a New Deal for Jobs and Skills, to meet the need for an extra 14 million highly skilled workers by 2020
There will be measures to help 30,000 more lone parents into work and pilot partnerships with the voluntary sector and local authorities for thousands more jobs.
From June 2006, the Government will introduce a strengthened, refocused, Fortnightly Job Review, the primary function of which will be to ensure that only those claimants who are able to demonstrate that they have undertaken their responsibilities to look for work are allowed to continue to claim JSA. Personal Advisers will be able to direct claimants towards further support where necessary, and will have effective powers to sanction those who are unable to demonstrate that they have undertaken sufficient jobsearch.
From April 2007, six-monthly work focused interviews will be rolled out to all lone parents who have been on benefit for at least a year and whose youngest child is under 14.
child trust fund payments increase when children reach age seven to £250 for all children and £500 for children from families with low income.
Child care vouchers will increase by £5 a week by £55.
Introductions of measures to enable employers to support working parents with their childcare, by raising the tax and national insurance contributions exemption for employer supported childcare to £55 per week and by making available capital grants to help employers establish workplace nurseries.
The introduction of a scheme, by December 2006, where,
under certain circumstances, private sector lenders can apply for repayment
of arrears through deduction from benefits, where normal repayment
arrangements have broken down.
Gershon
'efficiency' savings - Further savings in Government Departments in the next spending round from 2008 to 2011 that will also release new resources for future priorities. This will include the
Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs.
Free education for people up to age up to the age of 25. This includes further education all the way up to A-level standard. This will be backed by adult learning grants to help with costs of living.
In response to the Women and Work Commission Report “Shaping a Fairer Future” the Government is announcing a package of measures to enhance lifelong learning opportunities for women in training and work.
Each college would get a "step change" in employer involvement to better match the demand for skills to the courses on offer. There will be new powers to redirect resources from failing courses to the "best courses" - the ones individuals, employees and employers want to use.
Following an agreement reached this week with energy companies, a major extension of help for insulation to an additional 250,000 homes over the next two years.
Confirms the continuation of the tax-free winter allowance of £200 for pensioners and £300 for the over 80s and announced further support for pensioners which will be contained within the forthcoming pensions white paper.
A package of measures will be introduced to further simplify and reduce anomalies in the
housing benefit system, including:
applying more regulations equally to both customers and their partners
implementing regulations that clarify the treatment of owner-occupiers and former owner-occupiers and their partners; and
enabling tenants to receive housing benefit on the rental portion of a shared ownership arrangement, where the tenancy is granted by an organisation other than a Housing Association or Housing Authority.
In December 2005, both the public e-portal for internet applications to tax credits (online claiming) and the DWP e-portal were closed due to new evidence that they had been used to make fraudulent claims. Following checks to ensure that safeguards against fraud are sufficiently robust, the DWP e-portal for applications to tax credits will be reopened in April. Other aspects of the internet service will be opened later, once HMRC have developed extra security
Decided not to cut the taxes for families further but instead use the money to raise the
child element of the child tax credit by 14% over the next three years.
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Budget (March 2006)
