News Articles
The following news articles are not written or endorsed by Torbay Advice Network but are provided for informative and self-help purposes.
New articles are uploaded on a regular basis
Constituency data: Universal Credit claimants
The article contains the most recent constituency estimates of Universal Credit claimants at household and person level (including data for neighbourhoods within constituencies).
Time series data back to 2016 is also provided.
Universal Credit (UC) replaces six ‘legacy’ benefits and tax credits for working-age households. The Government first launched UC in 2013. The Department for Work and Pensions currently expects all households claiming legacy benefits to have been notified of the need to move across to UC by the end of September 2025, moving people to UC and closing legacy benefits by the end of March 2026.
How does health care funding in England work?
Funding for health services in England comes from the budget of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
The majority of the DHSC resource budget is transferred to NHS England with the remainder divided between DHSC’s other agencies and programmes, including funding for arm’s-length bodies like the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
NHS England’s budget is used to support and oversee the commissioning of health services. It allocates this budget to different parts of the NHS.
Guarantee our Essentials
Reforming Universal Credit to ensure we can all afford the essentials in hard times
When life events such as losing your job or caring for a sick family member happen, most people would expect our social security system to support them — and for this support to be based on an independent calculation of what things cost, but this has never been the case.
JRF research shows:
- around 5 in 6 low-income households on Universal Credit are currently going without essentials
- support has eroded over decades and the basic rate (‘standard allowance’) of Universal Credit is now at around its lowest ever level as a proportion of average earnings
- 66% of the public think the basic rate of Universal Credit is too low
- almost half of households see their payments reduced by deductions and caps. For example, a household can lose 15% of their standard allowance to repay debts to DWP.
Unemployment, benefits and household spending
New anonymized evidence from UK bank account data
The risk of a worker falling into unemployment represents one of the most important threats to the stability of households’ finances – both in terms of lower spending (and hence living standards) and in terms of a greater degree of financial distress (such as the accumulation of unmanageable debt or missed bill payments).
Providing households with some degree of insurance against these risks is a crucial function of benefit systems. However, relatively little is known about how spending and financial distress evolve following job loss in the UK and the role played by the benefit system – which, by international standards, provides comparatively little protection against unemployment, on average.
Good Score, Empty Cupboard
The credit score trap forcing households to cut spending on essentials
Credit scores have become a central feature of financial life for low-to-middle income (LMI) households, influencing their access to credit and shaping day-to day financial decisions.
For many, maintaining a “good” score is seen as essential for accessing credit, even when it comes at significant personal cost. Many borrowers have become extremely sensitive to their credit scores, often cutting back spending on essentials to preserve these. This strong influence is intensified by the widespread use of online dashboards, mobile apps and notifications which encourage frequent score checking, and deepen financial vulnerability.
This report, based on a representative survey of over 3,400 LMI households and thirty in-depth qualitative interviews, highlights how the credit scoring system also deters people from getting help with their financial problems and often encourages people to take on unaffordable debt.
High cost of living
Impact on households
The cost of living increased sharply in the UK during 2021 and 2022.
The annual rate of inflation peaked at 11.1% in October 2022, a 41-year high, before subsequently easing. In May 2024, inflation fell to 2.0% (the Bank of England’s target) for the first time since July 2021. Inflation has since increased slightly and was 3.2% in November 2025.
Even though inflation is no longer as high, the cumulative effect of rising prices means households face a much higher cost of living than in 2021. Households that were struggling before the period of high inflation have been most severely affected.
In November 2025, 61% of adults in Great Britain reported an increase in their cost of living compared with the previous month. Of those whose cost of living increased, 95% said it was because food shopping had increased in price, while 68% said it was because gas and electricity bills had increased in price.