Welfare Assistance Schemes

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, like all others who have spoken, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro for the opportunity to focus on local welfare assistance schemes in this short debate. I draw attention to my interest in the register as a trustee of NOAH Enterprises—that stands for “new opportunities and horizons”, rather than the boat—which is a Luton-based charity supporting disadvantaged individuals.

Like others, I begin with the good news, and recognise that the Government did, by consent order in the judicial review proceedings in September last year, agree to conduct a consultation, conclude their review of local welfare provision and review their funding for 2015-16. As we have heard, this led to additional funding being allocated for that year, but it was to cover health and social care as well as local welfare. This is a real advance on where things were heading when the announcement was made that there was to be no funding from 2015, without formal consultation or consideration of the equality duty. Sadly, this was an insight into the mind of the Government of what they were hoping to get away with.

It might be worth recapping how we got to local welfare assistance schemes. It was the Welfare Reform Act 2012 that paved the way with the abolition of key components of the discretionary Social Fund, namely community care grants and crisis loans. This funding was described then as the ultimate safety net for the most vulnerable—enabling, for example, women and children fleeing domestic violence to clothe themselves and furnish their homes. Funding under the new arrangements was to be channelled to local authorities and devolved Administrations for them to provide assistance as they saw fit. This funding, as we have heard, was not to be ring-fenced—a bone of contention at the time which was, from recollection, vigorously pursued by my noble friend Lady Lister. The best we could get was an agreement that the funding allocated was to be set out in the settlement letter that accompanied the local government finance settlement. However, concern was about not only the lack of ring-fencing but the lack of any new duties to provide support for the most vulnerable.

Although the Government claim to have passed through programme funding levels previously available to the Social Fund, that was after the Government had set about “managing” demand of the latter down, back to its pre-2006 levels. They did this by no longer paying crisis loans for such items as cookers and beds and cutting back the rate paid for living expenses to 60% of the benefit rate. The problem was not the devolving of responsibilities for providing this support to local authorities; it was the nature of the funding regime into which it was devolved.

Although it might be said that it is early days, work done by the LGA and the DWP suggests that councils are creating schemes which better meet the underlying needs of applicants because they have a good understanding of their local community and its demography. This is to be welcomed. The DWP, in its November 2014 review, instances a range of approaches as to who are supported and how they are chosen. The survey of local authorities showed a common list of provision—with food being on the top—but differing restrictions or limitations on what was provided. It showed some good practice on aligning funding with existing services, but overall the picture was of the limited provision of the most basic components of daily living for those in crisis: patchy provision, as the right reverend Prelate said. There seem as yet limited attempts to monitor outcomes.

There are concerns that even this provision is not sustainable, which is why, before the recent announcements of some additional funding, LGA research showed that as many as three-quarters of local welfare schemes would be scaled back or scrapped, a deeply worrying prospect. Of course, the model is familiar. Government devolves responsibility to local authorities, fails to adequately provide starting funding, fails to ring-fence what funding is available, continues to cut local authority support, and does so in a way which takes proportionately more from the most disadvantaged, and it leaves local government with the awful choices of which discretionary budgets to access to fulfil the statutory obligations in adult and children’s services.

The Minister may tell us that a majority of councils did not spend the whole of their allocated funds in 2013-14. That is not altogether surprising, given the time to get processes up and running and the then understanding that the council would have to fund the service from 2015-16, a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth. Over half of local authorities forecast spending all of the funding in 2014-15 but, again, some plan to carry forward some to support the subsequent year. It is in part the uncertainty of what is going to happen in future that engenders caution on behalf of local authorities and, of course, the price is paid by those who miss out on current support because the criteria are too restrictive.

The question may be asked—indeed, it was asked—about what the Labour Party would do should government come our way. We are committed to a fairer allocation of resources between councils and, in that context, would review the operation of local welfare assistance schemes.

We debate this in terms of budgets, allocations and resources, but it is really about people. What commitment are we in this rich but still unequal country to make to those down on their luck, hitting a crisis, or in need of support? Above all, I suggest, we need to see them as human beings, like you and me, and not just as the poor.