by Andre Coelho | Mar 21, 2019 | News
It was in September 2017 that the Scottish Government decided to support local authorities – namely Fife, City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City Council and North Ayrshire Council – so these could conduct feasibility studies on potential basic income pilots within their districts. A 250 000 £ fund was made available by the government, complementing the common resources shared by these localities for this innovative pursuit.
The feasibility phase is projected to end in March 2020, precisely a year from now. Although the study is being managed locally, within the cited localities, it is being developed together with governmental institutes like the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Her Majesty’s (HM) Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland, without which future basic income pilot schemes in the UK cannot be rolled out. This initiative is even more important, within UK’s internal organization, knowing that employment, health and safety, and social security policy are reserved matters, which means these are dealt centrally at Westminster Parliament.
Responsible officials for the study, also named the Steering Group, have been engaging with all the cited governmental institutes, plus learning all available information on other basic income-like experiments around the world, and attending Conferences focused on basic income (such as the last BIEN Conference in Tampere, Finland). These officials, and their associated team, are expected to present an interim report in autumn 2019, culminating at the presentation of a final report by March 2020.
Even though the feasibility study is still in its infancy, an update on the work’s progression has already been released (March 5th). It is scheduled as indicated below, in which Phases 1 and 2 have already been concluded (Phase 2 is just ending).
Phase 1 (ended)
May 2018-October 2018
- Local authority partners content with objectives
- Broad agreement
- Identified clear research questions
Phase 2 (just ending)
November 2018-March 2019
- Agreed on outcomes of interest (individual and household income; changes in adult and child poverty; labour market participation; individual and community empowerment; health, well-being and education; experience of the social security system)
- Identification of 11 possible models for basic income pilots
- Identification and commissioning of research activities (social benefits – basic income interactions; economic modelling of basic income; direct impact simulations on household income and poverty)
- Identification of appropriate funding and delivery mechanisms
Phase 3
April 2019-September 2019
- Upon evaluation, decision from the Scottish government to go ahead with the pilots
- Upon evaluation, decision from the included localities to support implementation (of the pilots)
Phase 4
October 2019-March 2020
- Presentation of detailed methods for the experiment, costing and baseline data identifies
- Secure funding and delivering mechanisms to start the pilot
As immediate next steps, the study team will now invest in understanding how to articulate the pilot basic income with the existent Social Benefits structure (in partnership with the Child Poverty Action Group). In parallel, it will also entail “economic modelling of broader and second order impacts on the local and national economy”, as well as “modelling (of the) the impacts of CBI (Citizens Basic Income) on income and poverty”. In this core stage of the feasibility study, funding and payment option will also be analysed in detail, while interaction with the several stakeholders and partners is deepened.
It seems that the Scottish approach to a basic income pilot is mostly from the bottom-up, in an attempt to articulate the operation of existing income distribution rules with the new element of basic income. This may not only be a necessity to effectively develop the basic income pilot, but makes sense in a more general and longer-term view of implementing a basic income in the region, further down the road. In any case, further important updates will come to us in September this year.
More information at:
“Scottish Citizens Basic Income Feasibility Study – Project Update Report”, Basic Income Scotland, March 14th 2019
Scottish Citizens Basic Income Feasibility Project – Update report to Scottish Government 5th March 2019
Sara Bizarro, “SCOTLAND: Scottish Government provides £250k to support feasibility work on BI pilots”, Basic Income News, December 2nd 2017
by Andre Coelho | Dec 11, 2017 | News, Research
Picture credit to: European Parliament
On the 23rd November, Social Europe published an article by Bo Rothstein entitled ‘UBI: A bad idea for the welfare state‘:
First, such a reform would be unsustainably expensive and would thereby jeopardize the state’s ability to maintain quality in public services such as healthcare, education and care of the elderly. … Another problem … concerns overall political legitimacy. … A third problem concerns the need for work. … The basic error with the idea of unconditional basic income is its unconditionality. …
On the 11th December a response appeared: ‘Universal Basic Income: Definitions and details’:
… The main problem with the UBI that Rothstein discusses in his article is not its unconditionality: it is the detail and the flawed definition. … a UBI is an unconditional income paid to every individual. The definition implies neither a particular amount, nor that means-tested benefits would be abolished, and it does not imply that the UBI would free people from paid employment. So instead of a UBI scheme that pays £800 per month to every individual, and that abolishes means-tested benefits, let us instead pay £264 per month to every individual (with different amounts for children, young adults, and elderly people), and let us leave means-tested benefits in place and recalculate them on the basis that household members now receive UBIs. According to research published by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, the effects of such a UBI scheme would be interestingly different from the effects of Rothstein’s. …
More information at:
Bo Rothstein, “A bad idea for the welfare state“, Social Europe, 23rd November 2017
Malcolm Torry, “Universal Basic Income: definitions and details“, 11th December 2017
by Sara Bizarro | Dec 2, 2017 | News
Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities of the Scottish government announced that a fund of £250,000 is available for feasibility studies of the Basic Income pilots proposed in Scotland. In addition to the fund, the government will also help the pilot authorities to assess cost and feasibility of their plans. The grant is to “help develop a research design and undertake a limited amount of community engagement, not to fund the pilots themselves.”
The Scottish Government does not have the powers over tax and benefits necessary to pilot a full Basic Income and the proposals need to be aware of “the legislative and practical basis for implementing a pilot including the consideration of reserved and devolved powers and administrative complexities”.
The Scottish government will provide further guidance to the pilot authorities in January 2018 and a deadline for bids will be set for late March 2018.
More info:
Kate McFarland, ”SCOTLAND: Fife and Glasgow to investigate Basic Income pilots”, Basic Income News, November 29, 2016
Kate McFarland, “GLASGOW, SCOTLAND: Basic Income pilot feasibility study approved by City Council”, Basic Income News, February 21, 2017
Hamish Macdonell, “£250,000 citizen’s income pilots a ‘shameless waste’”, The Times, November 24 2017.
by Kate McFarland | Feb 21, 2017 | News
The City Council of Glasgow has passed a resolution to proceed with a workshop on the design of a basic income pilot study in the city.
During a November 2016 meeting, the City Council of Glasgow decided to begin research into the design of a basic income pilot study in the city. An important step forward occurred on February 16, 2017, when the council unanimously approved a resolution to convene and fund a workshop dedicated to drafting and examining models for the pilot.
Under the terms of the resolution, the council will commit £5,000 (about 6,200 USD) to the two-day research workshop, which is proposed for spring 2017 and will be overseen by a cross-party working group. During the workshop, basic income experts will meet with councillors, community group members, and other representatives from both the public and private sectors. The objective is to design potential models for the pilot study, as well as to identify key stakeholders in the experiment and potential financial and political barriers to its execution.
The Royal Society of Arts (RSA), which published an award-winning report on a basic income model for the UK (“Creative Citizen, Creative State”), has partnered with the council for the purpose of researching the design of a pilot study for Glasgow. The RSA will prepare an initial document on approaches to basic income pilots, which the selected experts would then analyze in terms of their design, feasibility, and anticipated outcomes.
Jamie Cooke, Head of RSA Scotland, comments:
The decision by Glasgow City Council is an important moment for basic income in Scotland, and marks a significant step forward. The RSA is delighted to be working with the Council and other partners on the study, and welcomes the leadership the Council has shown. We now have the opportunity to move the basic income conversation forward and identify practical ways to run a trial which works locally and has global resonance.
At the end of the spring workshop, the working group will submit its proposals and recommendations to the Executive Committee of the Glasgow City Council. A second feasibility study, building upon these design recommendations, would take place during a second phase of the project, tentatively planned for summer 2017.
The full text of the Glasgow City Council resolution is available here.
See also:
“RSA Launches Study on Universal Basic Income Trial in Glasgow,” RSA, February 17, 2017.
“Basic Income pilot considered in Glasgow,” BBC News, February 16, 2017.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: CC BY-ND 2.0 Robert Orr
by Tyler Prochazka | Oct 12, 2016 | News, Research
After many years writing scholarship on the citizen’s income (or basic income), Malcolm Torry was constantly asked about the feasibility of the policy. A new book by Torry, The Feasibility of Citizen’s Income, seeks to answer this question.
Below is an interview with Torry on he came to write the new book and some of the conclusions he made in his research.
What prompted you to write this book?
It was about two years ago that the Citizen’s Income debate started to become seriously mainstream. I had already published Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income (Policy Press, 2013), a general introduction to the subject. Although the book was designed to be accessible to the general reader, a number of people had said to me that something shorter and cheaper would be useful so I wrote 101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income (Policy Press, 2015). Both of these books were designed to show that Citizen’s Income is a good idea. They might or might not have contributed to the increase in interest in Citizen’s Income among think tanks, political parties, and the press. (Both international developments and increasing concern about the future of the employment market were probably more significant causes.) I had frequently been asked questions about the feasibility of Citizen’s Income. At both BIEN and Social Policy Association conferences I had presented papers about feasibility that built on articles about political feasibility by Jurgen De Wispelaere and his colleagues; and then, following a presentation for Cambridge economists on different kinds of feasibility, Karl Widerquist, who was the other presenter at the seminar, asked me if I would turn my presentation into a book for the Palgrave Macmillan series that he edits. Some of us had already noticed that the Citizen’s Income debate was becoming at least as much about feasibility as it was about desirability, so I agreed to Karl’s proposal.
What was the most surprising and/or interesting element you discovered while researching for this book?
A combination of related elements: that the policy process (the process by which an idea finds its way to implementation through a variety of interconnected institutions) is extremely diverse; that understandings of it are equally diverse; and that ideas can sometimes achieve implementation without passing through what we might call a normal policy process: that is, that policy accidents can occur. The book therefore contains chapters on political feasibility and on policy process feasibility, as well as a final chapter, ‘From feasibility to implementation’, in which policy accidents are discussed.
Which aspect will be most challenging to overcome in achieving a citizen’s income: political or psychological barriers? Why?
It became clearer to me as I researched and wrote the book that political feasibility relies heavily on psychological feasibility. Only if a significant proportion of a population are convinced of the case for a policy change, and significant proportions of particular groups within populations (journalists, academics, policy-makers, etc.) are convinced of the case, is there any chance of political feasibility. Psychological feasibility therefore precedes political feasibility – except when political accidents occur, and even then potential psychological feasibility is required. Psychological feasibility will not be easy to achieve because in the UK we have been means-testing benefits for four hundred years, and it takes a significant paradigm shift to recognise that in the presence of a progressive income tax an unconditional payment can do the same job as means-tested benefits and can do it a lot more efficiently and without all of the side-effects of means-testing. Given the further popular ‘deserving/undeserving’ mindset, building psychological feasibility for a Citizen’s Income for everyone is going to be difficult. However, building psychological feasibility for such ‘deserving’ groups as elderly people, the pre-retired, children, and young people, would not be so hard: so a feasible implementation method might be to implement Citizen’s Income one age group at a time, beginning with those thought most deserving. This would eventually build the psychological feasibility required for a Citizen’s Income for working age adults.
Is a citizen’s income feasible just using current revenue? If so, would this be the most desirable way to implement basic income?
A Citizen’s Income certainly is feasible just using current revenue if income tax allowances (‘standard deduction’ in the USA; ‘Personal Allowance’ in the UK) are adjusted appropriately, and Income Tax rates and other aspects of a tax and benefits system are adjusted appropriately. We have shown that in the UK a Citizen’s Income of £60 per week for working age adults (less for children and young adults; more for elderly people) would require no additional public expenditure if Income Tax Personal Allowances were reduced to zero, Income Tax rates were raised by just 3%, and National Insurance Contributions (social insurance contributions) and means-tested benefits were adjusted appropriately.
Whether this would be the most desirable way to implement a Citizen’s Income scheme is of course debatable: but it would probably be the most feasible way to begin implementation.
What would the most significant effect of the citizen’s income be on households?
What would be the most significant effect must be a matter of personal opinion, because different households have different priorities: but among significant effects would be greater freedom to choose an employment pattern that worked for all of the members of the household; lower marginal deduction rates for all or many households, meaning that an increase in earned income would translate into a higher additional net income than under current means-tested benefits systems; and freedom from bureaucratic intrusion into the household’s relationships and circumstances.
What is the empirical evidence that universal programs are superior to means tested ones?
To decide whether one system is superior to another requires a list of criteria for a good benefits system, and then different systems need to be evaluated against those criteria. The book Money for Everyone contains a full discussion of the criteria for a good benefits system, discusses the ways in which the criteria are met or not met by different systems, and concludes that a universalist system meets the criteria more thoroughly than a means-tested one. The Feasibility of Citizen’s Income does not ask directly about the desirability of Citizen’s Income, but rather seeks evidence for Citizen’s Income’s ability to pass a variety of feasibility tests (although of course feasibility is required for desirability, and desirability for feasibility). Evidence is drawn from natural and constructed experiments, microsimulation results, and other empirical research.
What is the most desirable aspect of a citizen’s income? What is the main reason you support basic income?
Again, what is the most desirable aspect of Citizen’s Income will be a matter of opinion. Since we all have different preferences, the question then comes down to the second question asked: What is the main reason that I support Citizen’s Income? There is no main reason; there are lots of reasons: unconditionality; universality; lower marginal deduction rates; greater individual freedom; greater equality; decreased poverty; enhanced social cohesion; administrative simplicity; the absence of stigma, error, fraud, and bureaucratic interference in the lives of individuals and households.
What brought you to the citizen’s income movement?
From 1976 to 1978 I worked in the Department of Health and Social Security’s Supplementary Benefit office in Brixton in South London, administering means-tested benefits. We all knew how bad the system was, both for claimants and for the staff. The benefit that we and the claimants loved was universal Child Benefit, for its simplicity, its reliability, and the way that it reduced poverty, increased equality, and created social cohesion. Why shouldn’t the same principles and the same results be transferred to benefits for working age adults?
I was ordained, and served my first post in the Church of England’s ministry at the Elephant and Castle: the parish in South London in which the headquarters of the DHSS was located. I got to know people in the offices, and was invited to the department’s summer school. There I found the idea of a Basic or Citizen’s Income being seriously discussed. I was invited to join a group of individuals from a variety of backgrounds interested in the idea – the Basic Income Research Group, now the Citizen’s Income Trust – and have participated in its work ever since.
The motive has always been the same: to research the desirability and feasibility of an unconditional income for every individual as a right of citizenship. My new book concludes that Citizen’s Income’s implementation is feasible.
