Absent parents owe £3.7bn in child maintenance but the agency in charge of securing payments only believes it can collect £1bn of that, a committee said today.

The controversial welfare-to-work firm A4e has been stripped of one of its government contracts after ministers decided it was "too great a risk".

Auditors criticise poor fraud detection systems at government department

Three families have won an important legal ruling that the extra needs of disabled adults and children must be factored into housing benefit.

Amputees, including wounded soldiers, could be among half a million people to lose their disability benefits under government reforms, the Work and Pensions Secretary has warned.

The family of an engineer who has had both his legs amputated said today they could not believe he was asked how far he could walk as part of his application for disability living allowance (DLA).

Minicab company Addison Lee, which urged its drivers to use bus lanes, has lost its Government contract, it was announced today.

The Government was accused today of "betraying" disabled workers over controversial plans to close a number of Remploy factories.

Demonstrations will be held today in protest at the planned closure of factories employing disabled workers, warning of the problems they will face finding other jobs.

Young people taking part in the Government's work experience scheme are more likely to leave benefits and find a job, ministers said today.

Almost a million jobs have been lost since 2007 in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, hotels and restaurants, which traditionally appeal to young people, according to a new study.

Steve Webb, the pensions minister, is a clever man; a professor no less. But sometimes academics can theorise too much, isolating themselves from the real world. Prime example of this is Professor Webb's "defined ambition" pension proposal.

Hundreds of contract staff in jobcentres will go on strike today in a dispute over job cuts.

David Cameron blocked plans to cut the winter fuel payments for better-off pensioners in the Budget, i has learned. Some Conservative MPs believe that means-testing the £2.1bn fuel payments given to the over-60s would have been less controversial than George Osborne's surprise decision to freeze the special tax allowances for pensioners – dubbed a "granny tax".