News Archive 2026

CASE News
LSE Inequalities blog post by Tania Burchardt

"Social inequality should be at the heart of the Casey Commission on Adult Social Care in the UK"
LSE Inequalities blog post

The Casey Commission will consider wholesale reforms to the UK’s long-term care system. But given the dramatically higher care needs among the least well off, should social and economic inequalities be *the* central framework for understanding the nature of the problem that the Commission’s been asked to fix? Tania Burchardt makes the case for an integrated, cross-departmental approach to reform based around the “social determinants” of need.

CASE News
Ilona Pinter gives evidence to the APPGs inquiry into the Impact of Recent Immigration and Asylum Rule Changes on Poverty

Ilona Pinter gave oral evidence to the APPGs inquiry into the Impact of Recent Immigration and Asylum Rule Changes on Poverty.

According to the evidence

Proposals for 'earned settlement' include excluding children and families from access to social security protection for a standard period of 10 years. Some will have to wait even longer (15 years) such as those on a low income, like some care workers. This is alongside punitive measures for families needing access to vital benefits; punitive measures include adding 5 or 10 years if you've been claiming benefits for <12months or +12months. Some who don't meet the mandatory criteria may never be able to settle. And the government intends to apply these retrospectively causing huge worries for families already living here.

Among the refugee and asylum reforms are measures to withdraw support from families who have been refused asylum; making it harder for families to access support if they have permission to work; potentially restricting benefits access to refugees; and placing refugees on a 20 year path to settlement with reviews required every 30 months. These are all likely to have very negative consequences for the thousands of children and families who will be affected, including increased poverty and destitution risk. There were over 24,000 children receiving Asylum Support at the end of 2024 and around 98,000 children who claimed asylum with their families in the last decade (2016-25). Though some of the asylum provisions will apply for those claiming from 2nd March onwards (not all though!), these figures still tell us they a significant number of children will be impacted each year. The government's announcements are already contributing to huge anxieties and mistrust among refugee and migrant communities living in the UK.

These provisions stand in contravention to the good work the government is doing in tackling child poverty, especially deep material poverty. 

More info about the inquiry is available here. 

CASE News
LSE Research for the World article by Ben Goodair

Aspects of health and social care were first outsourced to the private sector with the intention of creating a market of socially motivated providers who would compete to provide the best quality care. Benjamin Goodair explores how privatisation has panned out in practice, and who benefits the most. He looks at both the provider and the system level. It becomes clear that while the privatisation of health and social care services may have been introduced with good intentions to create competition and inspire innovation, the research suggests financial incentives have put private providers at an advantage. The solution could follow either of the following possible paths: either reduce the profit motive and eliminate it from public services or make the financial incentives more aligned with what we think public services require: namely, high quality, efficient services that are equitable and equally accessible. His work underscores that the future of health and social care hinges not just on who delivers services, but on the values that guide them. 

Read the full article in the LSE Research for the World pages.  

CASE News
Vacancy: Research Officer

We have an exciting opportunity for a Research Officer to join us on our ‘Reform of Universal Credit Childcare, and Tax-Free Childcare’ project. This is a modelling project led by Dr Gillian Paull analysing options to improve the current systems of childcare support for working parents in the UK.  More details are available in the linked Job Description.

Applicants must be able to commit to working 20 hours per week for five months, starting in early April.  The rate of pay is £28.89 per hour, inclusive of holiday pay.

To apply, send a CV and a short covering letter (no more than one page) outlining your interest in the role and how you fit the requirements to case@lse.ac.uk. Please also direct any questions you have about the role to case@lse.ac.uk.  

The deadline is Sunday 29th March 2026, although we reserve the right to close this opportunity earlier if sufficient applications are received.

CASE News
Gillian Paul writes about the impacts of minimum wage increases

Gillian Paull, Visiting Senior Fellow at CASE, LSE, discusses the recent increase in the minimum wage and its implications for delivering Government-funded preschool places. Her article is being published by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition.

Impacts of Increases in the Minimum Wage on Delivery Costs for Early Years Providers

Following substantial rises in 2024 and 2025, the statutory national Minimum Wage (MW) will increase again in April 2026, rising by 4.1% for workers aged 21 and older. Given the significant proportions of low paid staff working in the early years and childcare sector, these changes have potentially large impacts on settings’ delivery costs and ability to deliver Government funded places for preschool children.

This report uses data from the large-scale and nationally representative Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers (SCEYP) to estimate that the changes in the MW in April 2026 will increase gross pay in the sector by an average 3.1%, with a substantial part of the impact (1.9%) due to the need to maintain pay differentials for workers paid above the MW as well as a direct effect (1.2%) of bringing pay up to the new legal minimum. This rise in gross pay will increase providers’ delivery cost, on average, by 2.4%, which is in addition to an average 1.0% increase for general earnings growth and a 0.9% increase for inflation in non-staff costs. The 2026 cost increase will follow estimated rises of 5.3% in 2024 and 4.8% in 2025 due to previous changes in the MW and Employers’ National Insurance Contributions. 

You can find out more and read the report on the EECC website. 

CASE News
British Academy Lecture by Ian Gough

On Tuesday 19 May 2026, Professor Ian Gough FBA, CASE Visiting Professor, will deliver the British Academy lecture "Planning for a sufficiency economy: lessons from Britain in World War II". 

Runaway global heating is accelerating to dangerous levels. While some governments reverse decarbonising plans to boost economic growth, the favoured strategy among others remains 'green growth'. But it is too late now. This ‘efficiency’ approach alone cannot stem dangerous climate change. This lecture develops the principle of a 'sufficiency' economy: a space between a floor of meeting basic needs and a ceiling of consumption and production that will sustain human habitats. It requires rediscovering older concepts including basic needs and unproductive labour. How can this happen within a system of global capitalism? This lecture draws on British planning in the Second World War to show how a capitalist economy can be transformed in under two years and discuss its relevance to today.

Delivered by the most outstanding academics in the UK and beyond, the British Academy’s flagship Lecture programme showcases the very best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

Find out more about the lecture and how to attend on the British Academy event page.

CASE News
Eleni Karagiannaki giving evidence to the Treasury Committee on the Financial Inclusion Strategy

CASE's Eleni Karagiannaki has given evidence to the Treasury Committee on the Financial Inclusion Strategy on Tuesday 3 February 2026. 

She participated in a panel made up of experts and academics, where representatives from the Financial Inclusuion Commission and the Fianncial Inclusion and Markets Centre were joined by academics who studied how to tackle financial exclusion. 

You can find out more on the Governmental Committees website, including the transcript and the video recording. 

CASE News
The impact of the two-child benefit cap research

The two-child benefit cap restricted Universal Credit and Tax Credit payments to cover only the first two children in a family. This increased the child poverty rate for families with three or more children. Kitty Stewart played a key role in providing the evidence of that increase and demonstrating that the cap wasn't achieving its policy objectives anyway, attending Labour Conference in September as well as providing briefing, commentary and analysis. In the November Budget, the Government announced the cap would be scrapped.