ABSTRACT
This chapter examines why loans became the preferred option as the replacement for SPs. In this context, then it focuses upon the economic and extra-economic factors that made loaning social assistance the SPs alternative front-runner. The chapter then goes on to examine concerns raised during the review process about the replacement of SP grants with mostly loans. Here the focus upon the issues of pushing already poor people further into poverty, the cash limit of the SF and its discretionary basis. However, it is the argument of the chapter that of the four options for replacing single payments, they were the most consistent with the general thrust of the SBR for economies in social security spending and with other aspects of the SBR team's framework for considering options for change.
