Tom Pollard

Sick who go back to work end up in low-paid, physically tough jobs Only a tiny fraction of economically inactive find a job each year, and it is often an unsuitable role where they can only last a few months, research shows

"Pushing people into insecure, physical, inflexible work when they are already challenged by disability or mental health problems is futile. These jobs don’t work and they don’t last"

Spot on from @claremcneil.bsky.social - important work by @timewise.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

New Mental Health Act data out today:

-52,000 detentions last year (similar to the previous year)

-Black people 4x more likely than white people to be detained (up from 3.5x)

-A 17% increase in Community Treatment Orders

-Black people 8.5x more likely that white people to be on CTOs (up from 7x)

Hunger in the UK 2025 | Trussell The latest report in our flagship Hunger in the UK research series provides a ‘state of the nation’ look at the scale and drivers of food bank provision and food insecurity across the UK.

Full report here: www.trussell.org.uk/news-and-res...

Chart showing the prevalence of conditions and impairments for people referred to Trussel food banks compared to the general population. 18% referred to food banks had a physical disability compared to 7% in the general population. 25% had a long-term physical disability compared to 20% in the general population. 58% had a mental health condition compared to 15% in the general population. And 9% had a learning disability or difficulty compared to 2% in the general population

New @trusselluk.bsky.social data shows millions more people experiencing food insecurity than two years earlier

If we want to understand the rising prevalence of mental health problems, we should start with the rocketing numbers of households facing inadequate social & economic circumstances

Better engagement for better outcomes Taking a rapid test and learn approach to engagement with people out of work due to disabilities and poor health

Thanks Nicola. It all came from this paper last year that Lloyds Banks Foundation kindly funded! neweconomics.org/2024/08/bett...

Increasing voluntary engagement with employment support Findings from a test and learn pilot led by Camden council

The report contains a wealth of info about how we developed & delivered this proactive outreach

It's critical that DWP & local government fully explores the potential for improving voluntary engagement before considering mandatory appointments for this group 3/3 neweconomics.org/2025/08/incr...

Chart showing that, from 757 residents successfully contacted, 110 (15%) volunteered to take part in a support chat, 79 support chats were successfully completed, each leading to 2.6 referrals into other services on average, with 42% of people agreeing to a referral to employment support

With just one pass at reaching out to a cohort of 800 residents over a four week period, we were able to engage 10% with a support conversation, of which over 40% agreed to an onward referral to employment support. We identified many opportunities to improve on these numbers 2/3

Image of report cover with the title 'Increasing voluntary engagement with employment support: Findings from a test and learn pilot led by Camden Council' with logos for the New Economics Foundation and Camden Council

My final piece of work for @neweconomics.bsky.social was a collaboration with Camden Council & a brilliant team of staff there

We ran a test & learn pilot to explore how to increase voluntary engagement with employment support among ill & disabled residents 1/3

Head of Social Policy Together we can change the rules to protect the planet, share the wealth and give everyone a say in how the economy is run.

Wrapping up at @neweconomics.bsky.social today after a really enjoyable two & a half years leading the social policy team

Very excited to be returning to @mind.org.uk as head of policy, campaigns & public affairs in September

Means there's a great job going at NEF: neweconomics.org/about/work-w...

Southwark sees 77% rise in homeless children, report finds There is one classroom worth of homeless children for every primary school, the report says.

BBC coverage of a powerful new report by @neweconomics.bsky.social's @hollies.bsky.social about the impact of temporary accommodation on children's mental health, with a focus on Southwark where there is one classroom worth of homeless children for every primary school www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Rachel Reeves was right about non-doms And the right-wing press was wrong.

"The lesson Reeves will take from the HMRC release is that the rich did not run. But it should also be that knowing what the rich are doing with their wealth is politically useful"

Great piece from @hollies.bsky.social of @neweconomics.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/eco...

Image of mother and baby looking at a laptop screen. Text reads: Childcare inequality in England. New analysis reveals who really benefits from government support.

NEW RESEARCH: The richest households in England will be eight times more likely to benefit from the government’s expanded programme of funded childcare hours. 1/8

The Universal Family Childcare Promise Guaranteeing support for parents and children

A pretty hefty piece of @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis out today by me & @pollardtom.bsky.social, in collaboration with @jrf-uk.bsky.social, on the problems with free hours-based childcare system Labour inherited - & case for a more progressive alternative 👇[1/]

neweconomics.org/2025/07/the-...

The OBR is always wrong Making economic policy by forecast is driving Britain in circles.

"We don’t cancel weddings months out because there’s a chance of drizzle - we shouldn’t restructure fiscal policy purely on the basis of a single number we know to be, at very best, an informed guess"

Really helpful contribution from @andymacnaemp.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/eco...

The British “wealth exodus” is a big fat myth Rachel Reeves is not responsible for chasing millionaires away from UK PLC.

Great @newstatesman.com piece by @neweconomics.bsky.social's Hollie Wright

The "exodus" of the wealthy is being overblown & departures are often "more about 'perceptions of declining opportunity & social cohesion' than any particular fiscal measure" www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Why shouldn't someone assessed by DWP as too unwell to work & facing significant extra costs due to disabilities & poor health receive state support at least around the rate of a minimum wage salary?

I spoke to Ian Collins on TalkTV earlier about (misleading) reports today on this subject

Over 1.6m children are now impacted by the Two-Child Limit - 11.6% of all children

This is a cruel policy that unnecessarily drags children into deeper levels of hardship

It needs to go, and the longer it is kept, the greater the scarring effects on children's health and education will be

Universal Credit claimants statistics on the two child limit policy, April 2025

Full statistics release here: www.gov.uk/government/s...

New government data on the impact of the two child limit: 469,780 households now affected, with 1,665,540 children in those households

Almost 40,000 more children affected since last year

It's a child poverty machine & it will cost us all more in the long term - get rid of it

The proof that benefits pay more than a full-time job Unemployed people on sickness benefits are to receive thousands of pounds more per year than some workers

The 'work disincentive' argument implied here is completely disingenuous because people would keep PIP (& a decent chunk of their UC) if they moved into work

The vast majority of people in this position would rather be working if their health allowed 2/2 www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Headline from the Telegraph: "Benefits pay more than being in work", with a graph showing that someone on incapacity benefits with PIP would receive £2,500 over a full time living wage job and someone also receiving child DLA and carer benefits would receive £14,000 more that a full time living wage job

It seems completely reasonable to me that someone who has been assessed by DWP as being unable to work due to disabilities/poor health & as facing significant health/disability related extra costs should be supported by the government to have an income around the level of a minimum wage salary 1/2

I've been working with a brilliant team at Camden Council, testing & learning how best to reach out to residents to foster voluntary engagement with employment support

If you want to find out more, sign up for this online event on 22 July at 9.30am www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/camden-emp...

Welfare bill will now lift 50,000 out of poverty after U-turns, assessment finds Revised bill passed after UK government rowed back on cuts will mean fewer rather than more people in relative poverty in 2030

This is nonsense. The impact assessment starts from an imaginary baseline incorporating reforms planned but never implemented by the previous government

In the real world, the cuts that remain in the Bill will push around 50,000 disabled people into poverty www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Liz Truss is long gone – but her fiscal meltdown still dictates every step Labour makes | Max Mosley A jittery No 10 now seeks the market’s approval for everything. The result? Cruel cuts and a fear of desperately needed public spending, says economist Max Mosley

"the financial returns from well-targeted public spending are often far higher than our anaemic assumptions allow... A politics that always talks down the impact of spending ends up justifying stagnation" @neweconomics.bsky.social's @maxmosley.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Is reform of the welfare system still possible? Our reporter considers the key questions after the government’s U-turn on disability benefits cuts

“What’s going on in the benefits system is symptomatic of an ill society where there is poor health, poor public services & a lot of poverty”

I argue in this Chris Smyth piece that tackling the underlying causes is the only path to sustainable benefits savings www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

The responsibility for any damage to the government's economic credibility lies with those who tried to impose rushed & crude benefit cuts to hit a savings target, not those who rightly stood up to challenge changes that would have pushed even more disabled people into poverty

The LCWRA element will halved, rather than ended, but given that the plan is to also apply conditionality to that group in future, the LCWRA group will end up resembling the LCW group before the element was cut

Government climbdown on benefit cuts should prompt a fundamental rethink The New Economics Foundation responds to today’s benefits bill vote

My full reaction for @neweconomics.bsky.social here: neweconomics.org/2025/07/gove...

The cuts to Universal Credit for ill & disabled people that remain in this bill will be deeply harmful, but campaigners & MPs have forced a climbdown on huge swathes of the wider cuts that were originally proposed. You cannot deliver principled welfare reform to a predetermined savings target

Full details of the impact assessment here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686269...