PRESS DIGEST - Financial Times - July 18

Financial Times

DRIVE TO GET BENEFIT CLAIMANTS INTO WORK

Next week, the first government drive to reduce the 2.6 million-strong list of incapacity benefits claimants will be revealed after the Treasury gave ground on one of its main accounting rules. The work and pensions secretary, James Purnell, is due to announce five pilot schemes that will pay private welfare-to-work providers out of the benefits they save as they find people jobs. The financing model was a recommendation of the Freud report that would give the Department for Work and Pensions an unprecedented ability to engage providers on a payment-by-results basis.

EQUITABLE ROW MAY HIT SAVING, EXPERTS WARN