Not to be confused with Demos (US think tank). vai anche a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd5qBL5ZiUg&list=PL_-XYgJCuYPXBewyh_13GEDwNL-kjUJSs&index=18
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| Formation | 1993 |
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| Legal status | Charity (no. 1042046) |
| Location |
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| Website | http://quarterly.demos.co.uk/ |
Demos is a think tank based in the United Kingdom with a cross-party political viewpoint. It was founded in 1993 and specialises in social policy, developing evidence-based solutions in a range of areas, from education and skills to health and housing.
The current Chief Executive is Claudia Wood, who joined the think tank in 2009 and previously worked for Tony Blair’s strategy unit. David Goodhart is Chair of the Demos Advisory Board, which includes former Attorney General Lord Falconer, Baroness O’Neill and Sir Peter Bazalgette.
Demos publishes a quarterly journal, titled Demos Quarterly, [1] which features articles from politicians, academics and Demos researchers.
The organisation is an independently registered charity...........................The current Chief Executive is Claudia Wood. She joined Demos in 2009 after stints at other think tanks and in Tony Blair’s strategy unit..........
Current projects[edit]
As of 2014, Demos has several core research programmes: Welfare & public services, Good business, Citizenship, Integration, and Social media analysis.
Noteworthy recent projects include Demos’s year-long Commission on Residential Care,[20] Poverty in Perspective[21] – which contained an in-depth analysis of the everyday experience of different forms of poverty across the UK, the housing report Top of the Ladder,[22] and an analysis of the harmful impact of different forms of debt.[23]
Demos has an open access policy, which means that all its publications are available to freely download under a Creative Commons licence.
Demos is unrelated either to the US think tank of the same name or to Demos Helsinki, the Nordic research and development organisation
See also[edit]
Un articolo di Clatudia Wood sulle "Carte Prepagate" , un benefit che lo Stato inglese vorrebbe distribuire ai piiu' bisognosi.Because a prepay card allows local authorities to see what's being spent in real time, it saves users having to send in stacks of receipts and bank statements. Photograph: Chuck Savage/Corbis
Alec Shelbrooke MP's private member's bill proposing a "welfare cash card" that could not be spent on "luxury goods such as cigarettes, alcohol, Sky television and gambling" has sparked much debate about smart cards (or prepay cards) as a way to control people's benefits spending.
If a person's benefits are loaded on to a card, it can be blocked from being used in, say, casinos or off-licences. This has understandably provoked strong reactions: the issue of whether the government ought to have a say over how benefits are spent strikes right at the heart of the shirkers and strivers debate.
In all the furore, people may not realise that prepay cards are already widely used for more constructive purposes. About 25% of local authorities are using prepay cards and another 30% plan on doing so this year, mainly to distribute direct payments in social care.
In light of the remarkable spread of this relatively little-known technology, Demos have investigated further with the support of Mastercard. Our report, The Power of Prepaid , to be published on Wednesday, helps explain why these cards are becoming so popular for personal budget distribution – for one, they put an end to the paper-based auditing system associated with personal budgets.
Care users have their personal budgets loaded on to a card, which they use like a debit card to purchase the services and items outlined in their care plan. Local authorities can see what's being spent in real time – checking to see that a person's spending matches their care plan, blocking it if financial abuse is suspected or if it gets lost or stolen, or investigating if a person isn't spending at all.
The paper-based system requires care users to send in stacks of receipts and bank statements to be audited by hand, usually once a quarter. Spotting financial abuse, clawing back unspent funds or tackling safeguarding concerns can only be done months after the fact.
This form of auditing is a statutory duty, but can be hugely resource intensive. Brent council in north London estimates it was receiving 25,000 pieces of paper a year from care users. It expects a 10% reduction in its personal budget costs by using prepay cards. Bury, another council trying out the cards, reports backlogs in its paperwork of years in some cases. In an era where local authorities must make unprecedented budgetary reductions, these back-office efficiencies aren't to be sniffed at – they can help protect funding at the frontline.
Of course, first-generation cards have wrinkles that need ironing out – such as establishing rules for taking out cash, making sure telephone support is in place and ensuring care providers are prepared for the cards. But local authorities can, and are, making them work.
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