Nursery World - Work 'slivers' for benefit parents

Parents of young children could be eased into work with the introduction of an ultra-flexible work system aimed at people who cannot put in the usual hours of an average part-time employee.

The Government wants to incorporate a system called Slivers of Time into the new Universal Credit, which was at the centre of the welfare reform proposals published last week (see page 6).

Lord Freud and Maria Miller, the welfare ministers, are examining changes to the earnings disregard - the process by which benefits are reduced once earnings reach a certain level - to allow people to sign up for work for as little as two hours a week under the Slivers of Time initiative. They want to pilot the system for disabled and lone parents at job centres across Britain from next April, with a view to rolling it into the funding of the Universal Credit from 2013.

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