Universal Jobmatch Programme (Fraud)

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Linda Riordan

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is the first time that I have had the privilege of speaking under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan, and I welcome it. You will realise from your own constituency work that the debate is immensely serious. It originated with a constituent who was ripped off, to put it in delicate language, through using the Universal Jobmatch that the Government, rightly, provide. I want to say at the outset, to avoid any doubt, that while I have been a Member of the House I have always been in favour of conditionality. The Government’s latest move on conditionality—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. Will hon. Members who attended the previous debate leave quietly? I should be grateful.

[Mr Field]

I should have hoped for more order at Jobcentre Plus than some hon. Members have been displaying, Mrs Riordan.

It must be at least 25 years ago that I suggested that help should be given to those who had difficulty finding a job. There may be fraud, and we should ask people from that group to come in at different times each day to sign on. I am pleased that after about 25 years a Government have got round to that idea. I approach the debate not in an attempt to wreck what Jobcentre Plus does, but in an attempt to improve it. As a start, Andrew Forsey of my office, who has done all the work on this, checked the Jobmatch scheme for Birkenhead today, as I am sure the Minister did. I know that many of her constituents use the same facilities. In the Birkenhead constituency there are 2,647 people claiming jobseekers’ allowance and, an hour or so ago, 24 jobs were advertised as available within 20 miles of Birkenhead. Fifteen of those were duplicate agency jobs, and two were stand-alone agency jobs. Despite the fact that the search was for jobs within 20 miles, one of those advertised was in Milton Keynes, two were in London, and one was for an overseas worker. There was a grand total of three actual vacancies. The Monster jobsite, run separately from the work that Monster does with the Department for Work and Pensions, had one job listed today, which was a teaching job.

To focus the debate, I thought it would be worth while considering the letter that the Minister wrote to the Chairman of the Select Committee, and the annex to that. The Clerk to the Select Committee kindly sent me a copy of both, and I have 12 questions for the Minister. Five are about the letter, and the others are about the annex. First, the Minister says in her letter:

“We have well established procedures to minimise the risks of this”—

bogus jobs—

“occurring within Universal Jobmatch.”

What are those checks and what are the results of using them? Secondly, she says:

“We have closed the fraudulent account and will compensate all jobseekers that have been affected in this case.”

I refer to constituents who were taken for a ride by a fraudster advertising on the Department for Work and Pensions site. The Minister says that they will be compensated. They lost at least £65 each—the money that they were asked to provide for a Home Office check—and have been offered £25. What does the Minister mean by compensation in those circumstances?

Thirdly, the Minister’s letter states:

“If the employer is in breach of our Terms and Conditions we will remove their right to advertise on Universal Jobmatch.”

What trawling of the site does she carry out, and how many removals occur? My constituent received a letter from the Department, which said:

“Currently there are 179 accounts advertising 352,569 jobs which potentially breach the Terms and Conditions”

that the Department has laid down. If the Department is telling one of my constituents that well over 350,000 jobs advertised may be in breach of the terms it lays down, how are the removals carried out? Fourthly, the letter states that that Department has

“removed…400 non-compliant accounts since…November 2012.”

May we have some idea of the reasons for the removals? How were the accounts breaking the contracts? Will the Minister explain more about the cleansing undertaken to get to that total?

My fifth and last question about the Minister’s letter arises from her saying that

“we have now concluded our investigations into 183 distributor accounts, resulting in the removal of the accounts and the associated vacancies.”

What are those distributor accounts? What sorts of vacancies were removed, and how many jobs were involved? Answers to those questions arising from the letter will enable us to understand more fully the action that the Department takes to ensure that people who use Universal Jobmatch will not be ripped off.

The first question arising from the annex is about its slightly boastful statement that DWP and Monster

“have already made major improvements”.

May I ask what those are? Secondly, it says:

“Sadly, the existence of ‘rogue’ employers is nothing new”.

If they are nothing new, what does the Department learn from finding out about those bogus employers and acting against them? After all, the Department offered facilities to someone who was known, certainly in some circles, as a fraudulent individual. People skilled in fraud do not normally turn up using their correct names, and nor did the person in question, but he was ushered into DWP to conduct his fraud. What action does the Department take in that respect? Thirdly, the annex mentions “well-established procedures to minimise” fraud. What are those procedures?

The fourth question arising from the annex to the letter is about the assertion that

“like all internet job sites, we manage the issue of duplicate or inappropriate vacancies.”

I remind the House that there are 15 duplicate jobs in the 54 advertised today on the DWP site. How well is that managing the issue? Fifthly, it is claimed that

“whenever we have a doubt”

action is taken. Who registers those doubts, and what is the doubt test that could lead to action? Sixthly—there are only two more questions—the annex states:

“If an employer breaches our terms and conditions we remove their right to advertise.”

Yet, as I said, the letter to my constituent said that there might be more than 350,000 jobs in breach of the terms and conditions. What action is the Department taking?

Lastly, the annex says that

“there has been inaccurate speculation about the relationship of the DWP and Monster.”

Will the Minister tell us something about that relationship, so we can be clear what it is? It is totally proper for them to have a relationship and for the DWP to ask Monster to carry out its functions; but it is not proper to expose constituents to fraud. That is the main point of the debate.

Today, even if we took the Department’s website at face value, only 24 jobs are advertised within 20 miles of Birkenhead, with more than 2,500 people claiming JSA. Large numbers of people are dead serious about trying to get a job, quite rightly, using that service, and they are being let down badly. What actions will the Government take to improve the service? Again, if people do not use the Jobmatch website actively, might they face sanctions, given the numbers of sanctions being employed at present? It is totally proper that the Department should have a website on which to advertise jobs, and totally proper that Beveridge’s idea of labour exchanges should be brought into the IT age, where people can easily advertise and where—we hope—claimants can as easily find jobs. However, the Department has totally failed not only to ensure that there are serious jobs on the site but, even more important, to take action to combat fraud.

I welcome the opportunity for the debate and to face my neighbour in Wirral West. Some of our constituents use the same jobcentre and the same site. I look forward to her replies, although I quite understand that she may need to write to me afterwards with some of them. I am grateful for the debate, Mrs Riordan.