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Debate continues apace over the appropriateness and efficacy of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) which is used to decide entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance in the UK. Conflicting and contrasting reports have again been emerging recently as more evidence is amassed, while policy goals are re-visited and real-life experiences reflect widespread distress and hardship. This article is a critical attempt to map out some of the many strands of experiences and concerns on the WCA, as the need for change is pressing.

What is the Transformational Government initiative, enabled by information and communications technology (ICT)? We describe its development, origins and prospects in seeking to join up public services to give simple, seamless, one-off access channels for citizens. We look at its governance and working structures, examining how ICT has been used to move towards common infrastructures and approaches in public services, bringing new potential for holistic service delivery. Finally, we show how transformational government has moved on from e-government, noting some risks that may affect its implementation. We note some particular issues affecting local government throughout the article.

April 2008 sees the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the discretionary Social Fund. With dissatisfaction levels ‘on the ground’ running notably high in the past two years, this may prove an apposite time to reflect on the recent performance of the Fund, in light of continuing disputes about both policy and performance.

Welfare rights advisers are immersed in the day-to-day detail of advising claimants on their rights under social security law that appears to become more complex each year. This article traces some of those difficult entitlement issues of recent decades. Complexity has resulted both from well-intentioned reform and from cuts packages. The article considers the shifting of administrative responsibilities, marketisation and outsourcing and some likely developments that these may facilitate. Rearranging the architecture of welfare and providing broad-brush reforms emerge as key strategies in simplifying social security. Yet reforms may fail, or bring serious risks, often without sufficient informed debate. The article considers implications for simplifying law and future change.

This article highlights how claims for key, but neglected, benefits are being reframed. There are some simplifications, but the main themes are of increased reliance on telephone contact and on new technology to share data. The article ends with a perhaps surprising conclusion.

With the recent desperate recession in the UK, and with a general election fast approaching, the pace of change in social welfare law and procedures has spiralled fiercely. The government has tried to anticipate or respond to a vast range of difficulties and events. This article gives some context for a wide-ranging third calendar of benefit changes, published online alongside this edition of Benefits: The Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, which aims to keep readers on top of the many changes in a turbulent year: 2009.

This article considers Pension Service access strategy and ‘the personal touch’, against the spectre of 1984. It builds on an article ‘Changing claims?’ (Patterson, 2003, pp 203-6), which considered claim forms, teleclaims and backroom use of information and communication technology (ICT) links.