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Welcome to the Independent Review
Service
for the Social Fund
website.
Our site is aimed
at those who have an interest in the Social Fund and its review process. It has
a wide range of information that will help frontline decision makers,
representatives, advisers and customers.
Please click
here if you have any
comments about your Social Fund experience.
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Social Fund Reform Green Paper: Social Fund Commissioner's
Response June 2010
In March
2010 the Department for Work and Pensions issued a Green Paper called "Social
Fund reform: debt, credit and low-income households". The proposals for reform
within the Green Paper, when read with the Welfare Reform Act, have far
reaching implications for all aspects of the discretionary Social Fund and will
introduce significant changes to the scheme, including the review process, for
future applicants to the Fund. In responding to the Green Paper the Social Fund
Commissioner has considered evidence from the significant amount of case work
undertaken by Social Fund Inspectors who deal with reviews of discretionary
Social Fund decisions from across GB; feedback from a wide range of meetings
and workshops with welfare rights and other third sector organisations during
the year; as well as a desk-based analysis of cases which were received at the
IRS for review during April 2010. To read the Commissioner's response in full
please click here.
If you have any questions or would like to make any
comments please contact Karen Manuel, External Business Manager at
Karen.Manuel@irs-review.org.uk
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An Introduction to Karamjit Singh CBE - the new Social Fund
Commissioner for Great Britain and Northern Ireland
 Karamjit Singh CBE was appointed as the Social Fund
Commissioner for Great Britain and Northern Ireland with effect from 1st
December 2009. He takes over from Sir Richard Tilt.
He is the
Judicial Appointments Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and is also a member of
the Queens Counsel Selection Panel for England and Wales.
The early stages of his
career covered academia, casework in the voluntary sector, local government and
the Commission for Racial Equality.
During the past two decades
his public appointments include considering complaints against the police ;
taking parole decisions; investigating suspected miscarriages of justice;
training of the judiciary ; selection of senior civil servants; regulation of
financial services; chairing an NHS mental health Trust; regulation of
donations to political parties and performance standards in electoral
administration; and membership of employment tribunals.
His
voluntary interests have included being a Trustee of the Citizenship
Foundation, the Lloyds TSB Foundation, the British Lung Foundation and
organising free medical camps in India.
He was awarded the CBE in
1999 for services to the administration of justice. |
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