For some time now, we on Coffee House have been raving about Iain Duncan Smith’s plans
for reforming benefits. And, today, it finally looks as though they – or something like them – will soon be put into action. The DWP is releasing a consultation document which aims to
simplify and straighten out a benefits system which now acts as a barrier to work. Over the next few months, various think-tanks and other organisations will submit their own ideas for doing just
that. Someone who will no doubt take part in that process, Policy Exchange’s Neil O’Brien, has a written a very useful summary of the main questions and arguments here.
The expectation, though, is that the end result will follow the broad contours of the “dynamic benefits” system proposed by IDS’s Centre for Social Justice last September.
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