The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) exists to provide impartial advice to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the wider ministerial team on the social security system. As part of our independent work programme we have just begun a new detailed study into how the benefits system influences the decisions young adults aged 16- to 18-year-old – and their families – make around education, apprenticeship and work. The support provided by Child Benefit, Universal Credit, and other payments varies according to the decisions taken by young adults. For young people in low-income households the decision to move from full‑time education into an apprenticeship can – but not always – reduce their parent(s) entitlement to means-tested support. For young carers, care leavers, or those with disabilities, the implications can be particularly complex. And there is variation in the support available in different parts of the UK. The three key goals of our study are therefore to: * understand and document how support provided for young people in different circumstances varies according to whether they remain in education, begin an apprenticeship or move into paid work with training; * assess how well families understand the financial consequences of these choices, and whether decision-making is based on clear information; * examine the impact of the benefits system on the decisions young people and their parents actually make. Our project will draw on existing research and engagement with policy officials at the Department for Work and Pensions and devolved administrations in order to map how support for different choices made by young adults varies across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We also want to understand the lived experience behind the formal rules of the system and the relevant statistics. To ensure this, we will bring in voices from those with experience of these issues including, most importantly, directly from parents and young people themselves. We will also host roundtables with charities, including organisations working with young carers, care leavers and disabled young people. And we will meet with think tanks and others who have done work in this important, though somewhat neglected, policy area – especially in the context of the raising of the education and training leaving age up to 18 in 2013. Our project is also timely. There is increasing concern about the rising number of young people in the UK who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). The DWP’s recent Green Paper includes a discussion of reforms specifically targeted at 16- to 24-year-olds, and the Government has a new Youth Guarantee for 18- to 21-year-olds in England. By way of a response to some of these issues, DWP has just appointed a Director for Youth and NEET, Alex Fitzpatrick. We look forward to working with Alex and her colleagues as our research proceeds through the summer and autumn, with a plan to send our findings – on what is working well and any weaknesses that we uncover – and recommendations for any reforms needed to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions by the end of the year. If you have any evidence relevant to the three goals listed above that may inform our advice or help shape our recommendations to the Secretary of State, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please do get in touch with Lauren Shields, who we have recently been delighted to welcome to our secretariat under a PhD student policy internship scheme funded by UK Research and Innovation to support us on this project. Lauren can be contacted at ssac.consultation@ssac.gov.uk.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) laid emergency regulations last week to ensure that people recently evacuated by the government from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories could apply for means-tested, disability and carer benefits straight away. Without these regulations they, and others, would have to wait 1-3 months before claiming means-tested benefits, and up to two years for disability and carer benefits.[1] However, these regulations do more than simply tackle the problem for people affected by the recent escalation of violence between Israel and Iran. They are intended to solve the problem for people in similar humanitarian crises in the future – in line with our earlier advice. In recent years, DWP has had repeatedly to lay emergency legislation to exempt those arriving from Afghanistan (2021),2] Ukraine (2022),[3] Sudan (2023) and the Middle East (2023) from DWP’s residency tests. Developing legislation rapidly in the face of humanitarian crises inevitably raises the risk of error and/or oversight. Therefore the [Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC), during its statutory scrutiny of such regulations, has since 2021 consistently recommended to successive ministers that they introduce a standard legislative framework that would cover future similar humanitarian situations without the requirement to bring forward new regulations. This would ensure that people in similar circumstances would be treated consistently and enable DWP to respond faster to emergencies. Bringing forward a legislative framework of this nature is not without complexity and requires significant negotiation to secure cross-government agreement. I am pleased that, notwithstanding those challenges, the Government has acted on our advice. Understandably given the circumstances, DWP had to lay these regulations urgently, so SSAC has not formally consulted on them before they came into force on 18 July 2025. However, SSAC look forward to giving them our normal full scrutiny at our next meeting in September 2025. * * * [1] For means tested benefits people have must have taken up residence in the UK and lived here for an appreciable period of time. Case law suggests this should be 1-3 months. For disability and carer benefits people must have been present in GB for 2 out of last 3 years 2] [SSAC to the Minister for Welfare Delivery: The Social Security (Habitual Residence and Past Presence) Amendment Regulations 2021 - GOV.UK 3] [SSAC to the Minister for Welfare Delivery: The Social Security (Habitual Residence and Past Presence) Amendment Regulations 2022 – GOV.UK

Few challenges facing the country are more significant than ensuring our social security system provides the right support for people with disabilities and severe or chronic health conditions, supporting them to live independently and, for those who are able, to find and sustain meaningful work. As with all major reforms, to succeed, these proposals need to be underpinned by a clear, integrated vision. Any major policy shifts must be backed by a transparent public rationale that explains both the reasoning and the expected outcomes. Following the publication of the _Pathways to Work_ _: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working_ _Green Paper_, the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) has been engaging closely with the Secretary of State and her ministerial team, expert advisers and officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). As an independent body, our role is to provide impartial advice to the Secretary of State on social security matters, and we have been doing just that during our engagement with the Department with respect to the aspects of the Green Paper where the government has been consulting and also more broadly. The consultation exercise on the Green Paper closed on Monday (30 June), and as the Department considers the responses it has received from a wide range of organisations and individuals, I thought it timely to share our initial views on a number of areas which we considered required further attention, and on which we advised the Department to reflect further when considering its next steps. Although the Government has recently announced that it has taken one of its Green Paper proposals out of the current Bill which will deliver aspects of this reform, this advice remains pertinent.[1] **1. An Integrated Vision** The Green Paper contains far-reaching proposals for reforming benefits, supporting people into work, and managing public spending. What does ‘good’ look like? We have urged the government to articulate further its goals for the different groups of people who will be affected, ranging from those who are expected to return to the labour market relatively quickly to those for whom there is little or no realistic expectation of future work because of the nature of their health condition or disability. A more tangible range of ambitions will not only provide certainty for claimants but will also be essential for the thousands of DWP staff who will be tasked with delivering these reforms on the ground. **2. The "Why" Behind the Policy Matters** We have highlighted several areas where the intent behind the proposals needs to be explained more fully as the policy is developed. The proposal to make the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) the sole gateway to the health element of Universal Credit (UC) is a fundamental change. Historically, we have had two distinct types of support: one for the extra costs of disability (PIP) and one to alleviate the poverty associated with being out of work long-term due to ill-health (the UC health element). Conflating these two purposes by using a test for one to grant the other needs a clearly articulated justification. The Minister for Social Security and Disability has subsequently announced that clause 5 would be removed from the Bill at Commons Committee stage and that no changes to PIP eligibility, activities and descriptors would be made before the completion of his review into PIP eligibility _._[2]__ We have previously asked the government to clarify its thinking so that everyone, including Parliament ahead of its consideration of the Bill, was able to understand the underlying rationale. The PIP review will provide an opportunity to do so on that aspect. **3. Employment Support** The Green Paper promises "_tailored and guaranteed support_ " for disabled people, which is a welcome ambition. The plan involves removing the Work Capability Assessment. This is a complex area requiring specialist skills. We have recommended that as the Department develops its policy, it provides more details on: * How will this new support be designed and delivered? * What training and guidance will staff receive to make discretionary decisions fairly and effectively? * How will we know what works, and for whom? * Critically, how much of the new support systems will be in place _before_ financial support is changed? We note the additional funds proposed for employment support, and look forward to receiving greater clarity around how the Department intends to make use of the insights obtained from pilots across the country to inform and support effectively the development of employment support proposals. **4. The Need for Evidence** The Committee has consistently raised concerns about the adequacy of published Equality and Poverty Impact Assessments for major policy proposals. We are urging the Department to create a solid foundation of evidence to underpin its policy development, for example by undertaking and publishing a deep analysis of how these reforms will affect different groups, including those with protected characteristics, carers, and families who may be affected by the benefit cap. **Our Conclusion: Learn from the Past, Trial for the Future** History has shown that reforming health and disability benefits is fraught with risk. Previous attempts made by successive governments have often failed to meet their goals, leading to rising costs while damaging trust and causing real harm to claimants. Because the stakes are so high, including for a significant number of claimants in vulnerable situations, we believe it is imperative that any changes are robustly tested and trialled. This is the only way to ensure that policy is informed by high-quality evidence and analysis, avoiding the mistakes of the past. The Government has demonstrated its willingness to listen to advice – from SSAC, Parliamentarians and a wide range of other commentators and stakeholders. They have also given a commitment that the review into PIP eligibility “ _will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, clinicians, experts, MPs and other stakeholders, so a wide range of views and voices are heard_.” The Committee has previously been a strong advocate of the merits of such an approach, and we welcome this commitment.[3] The Committee fervently hopes that this commitment will lead to better outcomes which effectively deliver the government’s ambition that “ _disabled people have the support they need to live independently, with dignity, and will unlock opportunities to get into work without facing the prospect of losing the help they need_ ”.[4] The Committee will, in due course, fulfil its statutory duty by scrutinising regulations that stem from the Green Paper. In addition, we will continue to engage constructively with the Department on the development of proposals that fall outside our formal scrutiny remit, for example those changes being brought forward in primary legislation and/or guidance. Our goal is to provide advice and add value across the entire reform programme and support the government in getting this right. * * * 1] [Universal Credit and Personal Independence Bill Introduced to Parliament on 18 June 2025. 2] [Second Reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Bill 2025, 1 July 2025 “ _During this debate, my hon. Friend and others across the House have raised concerns that the changes to PIP are coming ahead of the conclusions of the review of the assessment that I will be leading. We have heard those concerns, and that is why I can announce that we are going to remove clause 5 from the Bill in Committee. We will move straight to the wider review…and only make changes to PIP eligibility activities and descriptors following that review. The Government are committed to concluding the review by the autumn of next year”._ 3] [SSAC Occasional Paper 25: How DWP involves disabled people when developing or evaluating programmes that affect them - GOV.UK 4] [Further details on welfare reforms published ahead of Second Reading - GOV.UK

I’ve been a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) for around ten years, having previously been a policy director in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Last week I was pleased to see that DWP had agreed nearly all of the recommendations in our most recent report on regulations which changed the way child maintenance and other deductions are made from benefits.1] We had written formally to the [Secretary of State about them and she had accepted four out of five of our recommendations in whole or in part. The regulations came about because a change announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in last year’s Spring Budget would inadvertently stop some child maintenance deductions. She had announced that on 7 April 2025 the Fair Repayment Rate will reduce the maximum deductions that can be taken from a claimant’s Universal Credit (UC) personal allowance from 25 to 15 percent. This would ensure that people on the lowest incomes can keep more of their UC. However, as it stood it would also mean that, when claimants’ total deductions were over 15 percent, any child maintenance deductions would stop and the households where their children lived would be poorer as a result. DWP developed a package of temporary regulations to stop this from happening and presented these proposals to an extraordinary meeting of SSAC for scrutiny on 14 February 2025. At that meeting, we accepted that DWP needed to legislate quickly to prevent children losing out. However, the particular solution DWP had adopted meant that more households than before would have child deductions made, and some would see substantial increases in total deductions. Whilst this would benefit the households where their children (from a previous relationship) lived, the evidence we saw told us very little about the composition of, or impact on, households whose monthly income would drop as a result, including the impact on any children in their current household. We concluded that this was partly because of the absence of available data, and partly because DWP had not carried out sufficient analysis of potential effects, in particular the various ways the changes might affect disabled people.[2] We were also concerned about potential risks arising from child maintenance discussions displacing other deductions like those for fuel, and we thought that the date the regulations would come into force was not well enough aligned with the Fair Repayment Rate change. For these reasons we decided to take the regulations on ‘formal reference’.[3] This means that when the new regulations are laid, the Secretary of State has also to present our report to Parliament along with a statement setting out the extent to which she proposes to give effect to the recommendations and, if she doesn’t intend to accept them, the reasons why not. This is so that Parliament is better informed about the issues in any consideration of the regulations. Normally when we do this we consult widely to ensure that our analysis is as well informed as possible. However, a solution had to be put in place in time for the introduction of the Fair Repayment Rate. This meant it was not possible to consult others if we were to provide timely advice on the proposals. We therefore decided to rely on our own analysis of the issues, based on the information presented to us by DWP officials, the knowledge and experience of our members and our own 2020 report on the way social security affects separated families. In the Government’s response to our report, the Minister of State for Social Security and Disability agreed to: * commission and publish a much more thorough and detailed Equality Impact Analysis of the proposals using best available data before the regulations come into force; * actively involve us in agreeing a set of analysis to be undertaken over the next six months; * align the coming into force date of the regulations and the Fair Repayment Rate; and * the intent behind our recommendation of a comprehensive communication strategy, but not in practice to communicate proactively with all affected households (arguing that it would be impracticable and counter-productive). Ministers did not agree to our recommendation that claimants should be allowed to make representations about affordability before deductions begin. I have a number of reflections on this experience. * The social security system is complex and interacts with people’s lives in a huge number of ways. At least some of this complexity is unavoidable. But it means that it’s very hard to make changes which don’t have side effects – and tackling those side effects leads to further complexity and further side effects. Finding a balance between maximising the policy goal and minimising downsides is hard. * DWP is a data rich organisation, but our experience is that it often finds it challenging to mine and deploy that data. Just as seriously, where data is absent or in short supply it often seems as though DWP is unable to work through in detail the potential consequences of changes on particular groups of people. This is a clear example of where the Department’s Equality Impact Assessments need to be considerably strengthened. This issue forms a regular part of our engagement with DWP – both in our recommendations and regular discussions - and while there has been some progress, improvement is slow. * Our review on benefits and separated parents pointed to the challenges for separated parents to share care of their children and the need for the Government to have a strategy for separated parents (including parents without main caring responsibility) and their children with respect to the social security system. It remains pertinent today. * * * 1] [The Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Claims and Payments) (Modification) Regulations 2025 (SI 2025/****) [2] DWP were aware that the impacts were uncertain and as a result had decided to time limit them to a year so that they could be assessed. 3] [The Social Security Administration Act 1992

It is not uncommon that the Social Security Advisory Committee's recommendations, while not wholly accepted at the time they are made, feature in some shape or form in policy announcements in the years that follow. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ statement to Parliament launching the _Pathways to Work: reforming benefits and support to get Britain working Green Paper_ contains clear echoes of our advice from some of our previous reports. **_How the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) involves disabled people when developing or evaluating programmes that affect them_** Our 2020 report emphasised the importance of engaging disabled people during the development, delivery and evaluation of policies and practices that directly impact them. We recommended that: * Co-production should become the ‘norm’; * DWP should establish a large-scale panel of disabled people with direct experience of the social security system; * DWP should establish a protocol to ensure consistent implementation and improved mutual understanding; and * DWP should routinely publish information about its engagement. For some of the proposals outlined in the Green Paper, there is a clear commitment to establish ‘collaboration committees’ to further develop reforms. These will _“bring together groups of people for specific work areas who will meet to collaborate with civil servants and provide discussion, challenge, and recommendations”._ The groups will include both those with lived experience and other experts, with _“a genuine ability to influence outcomes”_ and visibility of their impact. **_Out of work disability benefit reform_** In our 2022 report, we called on the then Government to de-risk the journey into work. We highlighted claimant concerns that taking up employment could mean: * A potential loss of Personal Independence Payment (PIP); * Being deemed 'fit for work', even if a job doesn't work out; * Facing greater conditionality; * Losing financial support of nearly £80 per week; * Potential loss of work allowances. Our recommendations included: * Providing a clear guarantee that no PIP reassessments would take place within twelve months if a claimant enters paid work; and * Providing a guarantee that if someone tries paid work and it does not work out, within a period of a year they can go back to the exact benefits they were on, without requiring a fresh Work Capability Assessment. The Government now proposes to legislate for a ‘right to try’,_“guaranteeing that work  in and of itself will never lead to a benefit reassessment. Giving people the confidence to take the plunge and try work – without the fear this will put their benefits at risk”._ **_The future of working age contributory benefits for those not in paid work_** In 2022 we completed an extensive study into the two long-neglected contributory benefits for out-of-work working age individuals: New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and New Style Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). We offered fifteen recommendations as a starting point for future review.[1] The Green Paper now confirms plans to consult _“on establishing a new, simple and clear “Unemployment Insurance” benefit through the reform of contributory working-age benefits.”   _This would provide greater income protection for those who have paid into the system _,_ by replacing contribution-based JSA (and ESA) with _“a new single entitlement, paid at the current  ESA rate (currently £138pw)” _that would be time-limited. It is good that these benefits are being considered as part of these reforms, and we hope that the Government will consider our recommendations as it consults on how best to take this issue forward. While it is encouraging to see the Committee’s advice having some impact, we recognise that much of the detail will be crucial to the success of these reforms. The Committee will undertake a close examination of the detailed proposals over the coming weeks, and provide advice to the Secretary of State as we deem appropriate under our statutory remit. * * * 1] Our earlier report _Jobs and benefits: The Covid-19 challenge _(2020), which was produced in partnership with the Institute for Government, also argued that "_Contributory JSA should be strengthened…the rate should not be below that provided by the standard allowance in[Universal Credit”._