Welfare Reform

The Problem

Britain's welfare system has over 30 separate benefits, 11 separate assessment processes, and is administered across DWP, HMRC, 300 local authorities, and a separate Scottish agency. Universal Credit was supposed to simplify this. After 13 years and 2.9 billion pounds, it merged six benefits into one but left PIP, Carer's Allowance, Child Benefit, Attendance Allowance, Council Tax Reduction, and the State Pension all outside the system. The DWP's accounts have been qualified by auditors for 37 consecutive years. This is not a system anybody designed. It is what happens when you add a new benefit to solve each new problem without ever removing the old ones.

New Zealand proved in 2013 that consolidation is achievable. They compressed 11 working-age benefits into 3 core payments, administered through a single agency, and reduced future welfare liability by 1.4 billion New Zealand dollars in the first year. We will do the same.

A. Forty Benefits Reduced to Five

The full list of what can currently be claimed runs to approximately 40 distinct working-age and household benefits. Many people do not know they exist. Many overlap. Many create perverse incentives. Most are administered separately with separate forms, separate assessments, and separate fraud vectors. Here is what Forge reduces them to:

The five that remain as distinct named entitlements: Jobseeker Support, Carer and Parent Support, Health and Disability Support, Child Benefit (universal, automatically tapered), and the Crisis and Transition Fund. Everything else is either absorbed, replaced by a structural reform, or eliminated because it was a cash payment that should have been direct provision all along.

B. Three Core Working-Age Benefits

Every working-age benefit consolidates into three payments, administered through a single digital system.

Child Benefit and the State Pension continue as universal entitlements outside this system. Everything else folds in. Three benefits. One application. One assessment. One agency.

C. What Happens to an Unemployed Person Under Forge: The Danish Model

The Danish model is the clearest answer to how Forge handles unemployment. Denmark pays 90% income replacement to unemployed workers but strictly limits benefits to 2 years and mandates active retraining from day one. The result: 2.6% unemployment, the second lowest in the OECD, and half of all benefit spells resolved within 3 months. The UK pays far less but allows indefinite claims with no meaningful retraining requirement. The result is 1.4 million people who have been on out-of-work benefits for more than a year. Forge adopts the Danish principle: generous short-term support, active support to find work, hard limit on passive claiming.

Week by week: what Jobseeker Support looks like

• Day one: register with the new single DWP service. A work coach is assigned. A skills assessment takes place in the first two weeks to identify existing qualifications, experience, and what jobs are realistic at what wage level. The claimant is not told to search for jobs in a vacuum. They are told what jobs are available in their area and what skills they need to get them.
• Months 1 to 3: higher initial payment rate to prevent the immediate poverty spiral. Job searching with active support from a work coach who knows the local labour market. Two weekly contact points, one in person and one by phone or digital. Fast referral to the Citizens Advice debt service if financial crisis is developing.
• Month 3: mandatory retraining offer. If still unemployed at month 3, a funded skills programme is offered. The claimant chooses from an approved menu based on their skills assessment and local employer demand: digital skills, trade apprenticeships, healthcare and social care, logistics and supply chain, construction, green energy installation. The training is paid, structured, and leads to a recognised qualification within 6 months. Refusal to accept any training offer without good reason tapers benefit by 25%.
• Month 6: formal review. Progress assessed. If in training: full support continues. If not in training and not in work: intensive work programme begins, 35 hours per week of structured job search, work experience placements, and skills sessions. This is the equivalent of a working week spent actively moving toward employment.
• Month 12: second formal review. If still unemployed: community contribution scheme activates. The claimant works 3 days per week on community projects (road maintenance, social care support, environmental projects, council services) and spends 2 days on intensive job search. They are paid Jobseeker Support plus a community contribution top-up. They are contributing, building recent work history, and not sitting idle.
• Year 2 limit: after 2 years, benefit reduces to subsistence level unless the claimant is in approved full-time accredited training. This is the hard limit that makes the generosity of the earlier stages credible. Denmark spends 1.2 to 2% of GDP on active labour market programmes. The UK spends 0.3%. Forge increases this to at least 1%, funded from welfare simplification savings. The spending shifts from passive cash payments to active support that actually gets people back to work.

The Dutch model is separate and applies to people already in work

The Dutch model in Section G applies to people currently employed who go off sick, not to unemployed people. The distinction matters. The Dutch model makes employers financially responsible for the first 6 months of sick pay, incentivising them to invest in occupational health and early return-to-work support. It reduces the flow of employed people onto long-term benefits. The Danish model gets unemployed people back to work. Together they address both routes into long-term welfare dependency: losing a job and drifting there, and staying in work until sickness tips you into it.

D. The Reciprocity Requirement: Attendance, Not Paperwork

A welfare system keeps public support when people believe it is reciprocal: that those who can contribute something do. Most working people who fund the system believe this, and they are right to. Forge builds reciprocity into long-term claiming, but it does so in a way that actually works, by learning from why previous attempts failed.

Why job-search requirements do not work

Every UK government has required benefit claimants to "actively seek work," usually measured by counting job applications. This is trivially easy to game and everyone knows it. You apply for jobs you have no chance of getting. If called to interview, you underperform deliberately. You tick the box and keep the benefit. The system cannot tell the difference between a person sabotaging an interview and a person who is simply nervous or unlucky, because intent cannot be proven. The DWP has known this for years. Its own evaluations of the Mandatory Work Activity scheme and the Community Action Programme found little or no employment benefit, precisely because effort-based conditions can be faked.

Forge does not count job applications as the qualifying activity for continued benefit. Searching for work is expected and supported, but it is never the test, because it cannot be verified and it can be gamed.

What cannot be faked is showing up

The qualifying activity for continued benefit after the initial period is verified attendance, measured by a register, at one of a defined set of activities. You can fake intent. You cannot fake presence. The requirement is not "try to get a job," it is "be at this place, doing this thing, for these hours," signed off by attendance.

• Approved training with a genuine attendance register and a recognised qualification at the end.
• A supported work placement with real hours and real tasks.
• A community contribution placement for those who cannot yet do the other two: environmental projects, social care support, council services, libraries, community facilities. Useful, visible work that maintains routine and builds recent employment history.

Real job search continues alongside any of these, with work coach support, but the benefit is paid against the attendance register, not against an application count. A person working cash-in-hand while claiming cannot be at a placement three days a week during working hours. They must choose: give up the undeclared work, or give up the claim. This is the mechanism that actually deters fraud, and it is the largest single source of saving from the reform.

The honest fiscal position

Forge is honest about what this saves and how. The saving does not come from the unpaid labour itself, and it does not come from large numbers of people walking straight into jobs. Supervised placements cost money to run: organising, supervising, attendance management. Historically £3,000 to £5,000 per participant per year. The genuine saving comes from three secondary effects: the attachment effect, where people doing undeclared work disengage from the claim rather than attend (the DWP found this effect is often larger than the employment effect); the routine and recent-work-history effect, which moves some people back toward employment over time; and the strengthening of public consent for the welfare system as a whole. After running costs, the conservative net saving is approximately £1 to 2 billion per year. This is a real but modest number, and Forge presents it as such rather than inflating it. The reciprocity requirement is justified first by fairness and work-readiness, and second by a modest net saving, in that order.

The exemptions that make it humane

• People with severe disabilities assessed for Stream 3 direct provision are fully exempt. The reciprocity requirement applies to people capable of activity, not to those who genuinely cannot.
• People with significant caring responsibilities (caring for a disabled child, a disabled adult, or an elderly relative) are exempt. Their caring is their contribution.
• Parents of young children have requirements adjusted around childcare and school hours, never imposed in a way that conflicts with caring for a young child.
• People in genuine ill-health episodes, including mental health crises, have requirements paused with clinical sign-off, not enforced through them.

The placements must be genuinely useful, must not displace paid jobs, and must have a clear route toward real employment. This is the Danish model with a sharper reciprocity element, paired with genuine support. It is not the discredited workfare model of unpaid labour with nothing wrapped around it, which the UK already tried and which its own evaluations found did not work.

D. Citizen Digital ID: Real-Time Verification

The single most significant anti-fraud reform in this manifesto is not a new inspector or a new form. It is a Citizen Digital ID linked to real-time data from HMRC, the Home Office, and the NHS. Benefits are calculated from verified facts, not self-reported claims. The current system asks claimants to declare their income, their household composition, and their residency. Then it checks, slowly and incompletely. Forge inverts this: the system knows, from verified sources, and pays accordingly.

What the Digital ID verifies automatically

• Employment and earnings. HMRC PAYE records update in real time. A claimant who starts a job and does not declare it is detected within the first pay cycle, not at annual review. The benefit adjusts automatically. The claimant is not left to accidentally accrue an overpayment they then cannot repay.
• Household income and composition. Child Benefit is currently paid per child regardless of household income above the clawback threshold, with that clawback administered through self-assessment. This creates a system where high-earning households claim Child Benefit and then repay it through their tax return, wasting administrative effort on both sides. Under the Citizen Digital ID system, Child Benefit is adjusted automatically based on real-time household income verified from HMRC records. No form, no clawback, no overpayment. Households with combined income below the threshold receive full Child Benefit. Above it, the payment tapers and stops. Automatically.
• Bank account verification. With explicit claimant consent at application, account balance data confirms that savings thresholds are not being exceeded. Claimants do not need to self-report savings figures that the system can verify directly. Fraud through concealed savings is eliminated.
• Overseas residency. Passport control and border data flags absences exceeding 4 weeks. Benefits requiring UK residency are suspended automatically. The claimant is notified and can appeal where there is a genuine reason. The current situation where people claim UK benefits while living abroad for extended periods is detectable and stopped.
• Undeclared relationships. Council Tax records, address data, and electoral roll information cross-referenced through X-Road identifies cases where a partner is undeclared. Single-person benefit claims are verified against household data rather than self-declaration alone.
• Immigration status. Right-to-reside verified at application and automatically rechecked. A visa expiry or change in status triggers immediate benefit review. No-recourse-to-public-funds conditions enforced systemically rather than relying on claimant self-reporting a change that is financially disadvantageous to them.

E. Benefit Fraud Reporting: The Civic Reward Scheme

The UK loses approximately 9.5 billion pounds per year to benefit fraud and error. Much of it is known about locally before it reaches a DWP investigator. Employers know someone is working cash-in-hand while claiming. Landlords know there is an undeclared occupant. Teachers know a SEND voucher is being used for the wrong child. Schools know someone has not been in the country for months.

The current reporting mechanism is a phone line offering nothing in return. Reporting rates are low, prosecutions are rare, and the visible impunity of fraud in plain sight undermines public confidence in the system.

Forge introduces the Civic Reward Scheme: a structured financial incentive for verified benefit fraud reports, modelled on the US Internal Revenue Service whistleblower programme and the UK's successful Crimestoppers reward structure.

How it works

• Report via a dedicated secure online portal (not a phone line: digital, anonymous at submission, audited).
• Reports are triaged by a specialist DWP Fraud Intelligence Unit within 14 days.
• If the report leads to a confirmed fraud finding, the reporter receives the equivalent of 3 months of the fraudulently claimed benefit as a civic reward. On an average fraudulent Jobseeker Support claim, that is approximately £1,500 to £2,500.
• The reporter chooses where the reward goes:
  • Direct payment to themselves (bank transfer)
  • Donation to an approved charity from a published list (including foodbanks, veterans organisations, mental health charities, hospices, and NHS trusts)
  • Donation to a local community cause or Forge Club project
• For large-scale organised fraud rings (coaching false claims, multiple identities, carer fraud networks), the reward is scaled to the total fraud recovered over 12 months, capped at £25,000 per report.
• False or malicious reports face no penalty for the first report if made in good faith. Repeat malicious reporters face a fine equivalent to the investigation cost.

F. PIP: Services Not Cash, Targeted to Actual Need

Personal Independence Payment was designed to cover the extra costs disabled people face: heating, equipment, transport, personal care. The principle is correct. Disability is genuinely expensive. Disability charity Scope calculates that disabled households face average additional costs of around £1,095 per month. These costs are real.

But the current implementation has a fundamental design problem. PIP is delivered as cash, paid into a bank account every four weeks, with no requirement that it reaches what it was meant for. A flat rate is paid regardless of whether your actual disability costs are £200 a month or £1,500 a month. Universal Credit replaces lost income. PIP was supposed to cover the extra cost of being disabled. Cash with no verification cannot reliably do that.

Forge restructures PIP around a clear principle: PIP is for long-term physical disability, and it is delivered as services and targeted support rather than cash. Mental health is a health condition and belongs with the NHS, not the disability benefit system. So mental health is removed from PIP entirely and addressed through a major expansion of NHS mental health services accessible directly through the NHS App. This is not a cut to mental health support. It is moving mental health from a cash payment that does nothing to treat the condition, to actual treatment that does. The money saved funds both the NHS mental health expansion and the defence rebuilding the country urgently needs.

The Three Streams (Plus NHS Mental Health Pathway)

• Stream 1 — Employer-funded support, no cash. For disabled people capable of work with the right support (~40% of remaining PIP claimants). PIP cash replaced entirely by the Employer Accommodation Fund, an NIC rebate, employer support payments of up to £4,000 in Year 1 and £2,000 in Year 2, and a no-risk sick pay guarantee. The disabled person gets a job. The employer gets generous support that makes the hire attractive.
• Stream 2 — Personal Employment Budget, time-limited. For those building toward work where one specific barrier can be identified (~25%). £3,800 cap, two-year maximum, then reassessment. Not a permanent category.
• Stream 3 — Direct provision for severe disability. For those who genuinely cannot work due to severe and permanent physical conditions (~35%). No cash. Care hours, equipment, and adaptations provided directly. Social worker assessment every 18 months. Universal Credit and Housing Benefit cover income.
• Mental health is not PIP. Mental health conditions are removed from PIP entirely and addressed by the NHS through a major expansion of mental health services accessible directly through the NHS App: self-referral to talking therapies, digital CBT, and counselling, with no GP gatekeeping and fast access. People with physical disabilities who also have a mental health condition are assessed for Streams 1 to 3 on their physical disability and receive the NHS mental health service alongside, like any other citizen.

G. Mental Health: Treated by the NHS, Not Paid by PIP

This is one of the most important reforms in the welfare programme, and the one most likely to be misrepresented, so the principle must be stated plainly. Approximately 1.37 million PIP claimants (37% of the total) have a mental health condition as their primary basis for the claim. Under the current system they receive cash, on average £6,200 per year, paid into a bank account with no requirement that anything is done with it, no treatment, and no expectation of recovery. The payment often continues indefinitely.

This is not support. It is abandonment with a cheque attached. A person with depression or anxiety receives money that does nothing to treat their condition, while waiting up to 18 months for NHS talking therapies. Worse, the cash creates a financial trap: if they recover, they lose the payment, so the system gives them a reason to stay unwell. No humane system should be designed this way.

What Forge does instead

Mental health is removed from PIP entirely. It is a health condition and it is treated by the NHS, where health conditions belong. The money currently spent on cash payments funds a major expansion of NHS mental health services accessible directly through the NHS App:

• Self-referral through the NHS App with no GP gatekeeping. A person who needs mental health support requests it directly in the app and is triaged within days, not months.
• Talking therapies within weeks, not 18 months. CBT, counselling, and structured psychological treatment. The expansion funds enough therapist capacity to bring waiting times down dramatically.
• Digital CBT and guided self-help available immediately through the app for mild to moderate conditions, with human therapist escalation when needed.
• Continuous care, not a one-off. A treatment plan with a clinician, reviewed and adjusted, aimed at genuine recovery and at equipping people with the tools to manage their condition and return to a full life.
• Income during treatment is covered by Universal Credit exactly as for any other person who cannot currently work, with no separate disability cash payment for the mental health condition itself.

Severe and enduring mental illness

People with severe, enduring psychiatric conditions, including psychosis, schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder, and severe treatment-resistant conditions certified by a consultant psychiatrist, are treated as having a long-term disability and are assessed for Stream 3 direct provision. They receive full ongoing support and care. The removal of mental health from PIP applies to the large majority of claims, which are for anxiety and depression, not to the small number of severe psychiatric disabilities that genuinely meet the threshold for long-term disability support.

Why this is better for the person, not just the budget

A person with moderate depression currently receives roughly £6,200 a year in PIP cash and waits up to 18 months for treatment. Under Forge they receive treatment within weeks through the NHS App, with income covered by Universal Credit while they cannot work, and a clinical team committed to their recovery. The cash they currently receive treats nothing. The service they receive under Forge treats the actual condition. This is a better deal for the person with the mental health condition, not a worse one.

The fiscal effect

Removing mental health from PIP saves approximately £8.5 billion per year in cash payments. The NHS App mental health expansion costs approximately £1.5 billion per year. On a conservative basis, accounting for the minority of claimants who have physical conditions alongside their mental health condition and are assessed for Streams 1 to 3, the net saving is approximately £5.3 billion per year. This money is directed to the defence rebuilding the country urgently needs: the drone industrial base, the integrated AI battle management system, and the conventional forces that three years of war in Europe have shown to be essential. A nation that cannot defend itself cannot protect anyone, including its most vulnerable.

Stream 1: Employer-Funded Support, No Cash Payment

For disabled people assessed as capable of work with the right support (the largest single group, approximately 25% of current PIP claimants), the PIP cash payment is replaced entirely by employer-funded support delivered through the Employer Accommodation Fund. The disabled person receives no cash from PIP. They receive paid employment with all the additional costs of their disability covered by the Fund and substantial financial incentives for the employer that make them genuinely attractive to hire.

What the disabled person receives

• A job, supported by an employer who has been given every incentive to hire and retain them.
• Workplace adaptations and equipment procured directly by the Fund and delivered to the workplace, free to the disabled person and free to the employer.
• Occupational health assessment paid by the Fund, identifying exactly what is needed for them to work effectively.
• A supported employment worker placed alongside them for the first three months at no cost to anyone but the Fund.
• Universal Credit covering income during the transition into work if needed, exactly as for any non-disabled UC claimant.

What the employer receives

• Free workplace adaptations and equipment with no upfront cost and no claim-back process. The Fund pays suppliers directly. The employer never sees an invoice for disability-related costs.
• NIC rebate at 12 months equivalent to 6 months of employer National Insurance contributions for that employee, automatically credited to the PAYE account. For a median-salary employee, approximately £1,200. For a small employer, that is genuinely meaningful.
• Generous employer support payments for 1 to 2 years. For employers hiring people whose disability significantly limits their immediate productivity, a direct payment to the employer for the first or second year on a sliding scale that recognises the real cost of supporting a disabled employee into full productivity. Year 1: up to £4,000 per employee. Year 2: up to £2,000. This is genuinely transformative for the small employer who might otherwise consider the hire too risky.
• No-risk sick pay guarantee for two years. The Fund covers all disability-related sick pay. The employer pays nothing if the employee is off work due to their disability. Modelled on the Dutch Wet Banenafspraak that moved the Netherlands from 45% to 63% disabled employment over eight years.
• Reassessment without escalating cost. If the employee's condition changes, the Fund reassesses and adjusts equipment and support. The employer is never left holding an escalating cost.

The principle

The disabled person's PIP cash payment of £4,000 to £6,000 per year, which is paid into their bank account regardless of whether they work, is replaced by approximately £4,000 to £6,000 per year channelled through the employer in the form of payments, NIC rebates, and risk guarantees. The disabled person receives the same value, but they receive it as a job rather than as a benefit. The fiscal cost is broadly similar. The economic and social outcome is transformatively different. A person in skilled work, earning a salary, paying tax, contributing to a pension, and building a career is a fundamentally different outcome from a person at home receiving cash to compensate for the absence of work.

This stream is the single largest fiscal restructuring in the welfare programme. Approximately 930,000 current PIP claimants whose primary issue is a mild to moderate physical disability that prevents work without support are moved off PIP cash and into supported employment under this framework. Estimated saving from this stream alone: £2.5 to 3.5 billion annually once fully transitioned, with the disabled person better off because they have a job and earnings rather than a cash payment.

Stream 2: The Personal Employment Budget — tightly controlled

For those building toward work where one specific barrier is identifiable, the daily living component is replaced by a Personal Employment Budget. This stream is deliberately limited and transitional — it is not a softer form of PIP. Without strict controls it becomes exactly that.

• Capped at £3,800 per year — equivalent to the current average daily living component. Not a blank cheque.
• Pre-approved against a written employment plan produced with an employment adviser or social worker. Every spend must map to a specific identified barrier in that plan. "Driving lessons" is approvable if transport is the documented barrier. It is not approvable as a general-purpose allowance.
• Receipted and released in tranches. The budget is not paid as a lump sum. Each spend is receipted and verified before the next tranche releases. Unspent funds return to the assessment pool, not to the claimant.
• Time-limited to 2 years maximum. Stream 2 is a transitional state. At 12 months, a formal review assesses progress toward employment. At 24 months, a full reassessment determines the correct stream: Stream 1 if the person is ready for employer-supported work, Stream 3 if the barrier has proved insurmountable. Stream 2 does not roll over indefinitely.
• The mobility component continues as funded transport throughout — dial-a-ride, accessible taxi, adapted vehicle grants. Not cash.

Stream 3: Direct provision for those who genuinely cannot work

For people with permanent, severe conditions where employment is genuinely impossible — certified by a specialist clinical panel, not a form — PIP is converted from cash to direct provision assessed by a qualified social worker.

• Social worker assessment every 18 months identifying actual disability-related costs: care hours, equipment, adaptations, specialist transport, heating, specialist food. Comprehensive and person-centred.
• All provision funded directly to providers. Care hours paid to the care agency. Equipment procured through approved suppliers. Adaptations commissioned directly. The money goes to what it is for.
• No cash element. Universal Credit and Housing Benefit already cover income replacement. PIP in Stream 3 exists solely to fund the extra cost of disability. Direct provision ensures it does exactly that and nothing else.
• The 18-month review adjusts provision as needs change. A social worker who knows the person makes that judgement. Not a contractor on performance bonuses completing an annual form.

G. The Dutch Model: Employer Responsibility First

In the Netherlands, employers are responsible for the first two years of sick pay and must fund a structured return-to-work programme before the state takes over. The result: Dutch employers actively invest in occupational health, early intervention, and workplace adjustment to avoid the cost. Their long-term sickness rates are significantly lower than the UK's.

• Employers pay the first 6 months of statutory sick pay plus fund an occupational health assessment and return-to-work plan. Employers who fail to engage face fines. Employers who succeed receive NIC rebates
• Fit notes from GPs limited to 4 weeks. Beyond 4 weeks, fit notes must be renewed by an occupational health physician. For absences beyond 3 months, objective medical evidence (scan, specialist letter, diagnostic test) is required
• Structured fit notes: what you CAN do, not just what you cannot. Following the Dutch model, fit notes specify residual capacity: "can work seated for 4 hours", "can work from home", "cannot lift over 5kg". Binary fit/unfit fit notes are abolished
• Occupational health at 4 weeks, not 4 months. Employers required to refer any employee on extended sick leave to occupational health within 4 weeks. State-funded for employers with fewer than 50 staff
• Graduated benefit for partial capacity. Someone who can work 2 days a week is not "unfit for work." They receive partial Jobseeker Support topped up to full rate while they work partially. The cliff-edge between full benefit and no benefit is replaced with a taper

I. Anti-Abuse Measures

• 30% face-to-face PIP assessment minimum (currently only 6%)
• Functional capacity evaluation for physical claims using objective tests, not self-reporting alone
• 3-year reassessment for recoverable conditions; permanent awards only with specialist certification
• Independent specialist clinical panels replace Atos and Capita contractors on performance bonuses
• Cross-verification with Citizen Digital ID detects undeclared paid work, overseas residency, and concealed household composition automatically
• Criminal prosecution for organised fraud networks coaching false claims. A dedicated DWP Fraud Intelligence Unit with 500 specialist investigators and prosecutorial resource
• Benefit repayment enforced through HMRC PAYE deduction at source for those who return to work. No more unenforceable overpayment letters

J. Investing in Domestic Social Care Workforce: Reducing Dependency on Immigration

The UK currently employs approximately 430,000 overseas workers in adult social care, representing roughly a third of the workforce. This reliance reflects a systemic failure to train, pay, and retain domestic workers rather than a genuine shortage of British people willing to do the work. Care work is demanding, skilled, and essential. It is also paid, on average, £11 to £12 per hour, often on zero-hours contracts, with minimal career progression and no professional recognition.

Forge addresses this directly through the same welfare reform framework:

• Care Work as a Retraining Destination. Anyone on Jobseeker Support for more than 3 months is offered funded retraining in adult social care as one of the primary tracks. The retraining is paid, structured, and leads to a recognised qualification (Level 2 or Level 3 Certificate in Health and Social Care) within 6 months. The state funds the training because the cost is recovered through reduced benefit spend and reduced reliance on expensive overseas recruitment.
• Career Structure and Pay. A formal career ladder for social care workers, with defined pay bands equivalent to NHS Bands 2 to 5, implemented across all public and publicly-funded care providers. Care workers at Band 3 or above receive the same terms, pension rights, and sick pay as NHS staff. This is funded through the welfare reform savings: money that currently pays Jobseeker Support to people who could be working in care is redirected to training those people and then paying them properly.
• Social Care Professionals Register. A mandatory register of qualified social care workers, equivalent to the Nursing and Midwifery Council register for nurses. Registration requires a recognised qualification and continuing professional development. This raises the status of the profession, improves quality, and creates a domestic workforce pipeline that reduces the pressure to recruit from overseas.
• The immigration consequence: these measures are designed to reduce the need for social care visas over a 5-year period as the domestic workforce grows. They do not eliminate overseas recruitment immediately: the current shortage is real and care homes cannot close while domestic workers are trained. The visa route for social care workers remains open during the transition but becomes subject to a national workforce plan reviewed annually, with the objective of reducing overseas dependency to under 15% of the workforce within 10 years.

K. Consolidate Small Payments Into Real Provision

The current system pays out dozens of small discretionary cash sums that are difficult to audit, easy to misdirect, and impossible to verify at scale. We replace untraceable cash with verified provision:

• Holiday and after-school activity money redirected into universal school provision (Section XIV). The money goes to the school. The provision is real and supervised
• Discretionary council crisis cash replaced by direct payment to providers. Energy bills paid directly to the supplier. White goods sourced through approved suppliers. Food through prepaid cards restricted to food retailers
• One Crisis and Transition Fund replaces the patchwork of local schemes. Single application through Universal Credit. Default is provision, not cash. Councils retain discretion for genuinely unique circumstances
• Healthy Start vouchers retained as they are already prepaid cards restricted to fruit, vegetables, and milk

L. Projected Savings

Consolidating 30 benefits into 3, eliminating duplicate assessments, closing the 9.5 billion fraud and error gap through real-time verification, and reducing the DWP's 89,000-person department through automation generates substantial savings. Combined with Dutch-model employer responsibility and tightened mental health eligibility, the projected savings are 15 to 20 billion pounds per year by year 5. These are phased because the new system takes time to establish: year 1 saves around 2 billion, growing each year as the new processes bed in and fraud reduction compounds.