Jobcentres and the DWP Estate
Debate between Mike Gapes and Damian Hinds(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
I am fairly sure that I was talking not about that, but about the consultation criteria. At the end of the process, we will have a settled estate, which will put us in a better position to share services and so on with other bodies.
I will skip over some of my material and respond directly to some of the questions that came up in the debate. The hon. Member for Wirral West asked about concerns about travel times and travel costs. I reassure Members that claimants can be reimbursed for any travel to jobcentres that is more frequent than fortnightly. For those on JSA for more than 13 weeks and, in some circumstances, from the very first day on other benefits, it is possible to apply for a Jobcentre Plus travel discount card, which is available for different local transport companies. Of course, anyone on employment and support allowance is not asked to attend the jobcentre regularly. The existing outreach services and the additional ones that we will put in place as a result of the changes will give us more presence in local areas.
On sanctions, the point is that we ask people to make reasonable efforts to get to appointments and other things they have committed to as part of their job search. There will be a transition time as people get used to different arrangements, but the requirement for people to make reasonable efforts will always remain.
On access to online facilities, DWP always has an alternative to online, but in this day and age it is also true that to look for work and to be in work, it is increasingly essential to have some IT skills. We therefore think it is important to help people with that, which is one of the reasons why we provide IT equipment in jobcentre lobbies and have people who can help claimants with it.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) asked whether the other jobcentres in Glasgow have the capacity to take in the extra operations. The answer is that they do—that is the entire basis of our plans. We will put outreach in place in those locations where we had a public consultation because the distances travelled would be a little further.
We want to minimise all risk of job losses. We have not yet completed all the conversations with staff, and we are continuing to have those one-to-ones. The DWP has a good record over many years of retaining staff. We will seek to facilitate that as much as possible.
Some of the questions were about working with the Scottish Government. We are keen to do so, and we look forward to more such opportunities in future. I was also asked about the equality impact assessment, and we have built in consideration of the impact on people with protected characteristics through all stages of the estates project process. We will continue to do so, thus fulfilling our duty under the Equalities Act 2010.
