The Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel has lodged the proposition, which calls for the single-parent component of income support to be reinstated.
In 2015 politicians rejected an amendment from Deputy Sam Mézec to retain the extra £40 a week paid to single parents.
Now the panel, which is chaired by Deputy Richard Renouf and has Deputy Mézec’s Reform Jersey colleague Deputy Geoff Southern as vice-chairman, has called for that decision to be reversed, at an estimated cost of £2.3 million per year.
The panel is calling for the Social Security and Treasury ministers to find a way to pay for the reinstatement until a sustainable solution can be identified in the next Medium Term Financial Plan, which will run from 2020.
And the panel says that as the Social Security Department currently underspends it therefore can afford the reintroduction.
Deputy Renouf said that the panel’s report on living on low income presented to the States in September 2016 said that the single-parent component should be reinstated as a matter of urgency. The recommendation was rejected by the minister.
He said: ‘Since we presented our report on low income, which showed that single parents are one of the most vulnerable groups in our community, we are concerned that the financial assistance historically provided to single parents has now been taken away.
‘Our inquiries have shown that the annual cost of reinstating the single-parent component is approximately £2.3 million. Although we acknowledge this is a large amount to find, we also note the Social Security Department achieved savings of over £10 million in its budget last year, mostly as a result of a decrease in the number of benefit claimants.’
