Personal Independence Payments (Wales)

Mike Penning Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend.

The Minister may be heartened to hear me mention a previous Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, who used to say she believed we should run the national budget like a household budget. Leaving aside our views on the politics of the late Baroness, perhaps we can use that analogy here, to look at the scandal of the joint DWP and Capita mess that has been made with our money. We might imagine Capita as a firm of builders hired for a two-week job at an agreed daily rate, but which has already taken a month and is still nowhere near finishing. If I or many of my constituents had hired those builders, they would be out on their ear. What if Capita were a local charity, such as the type I used to manage before I became an MP: the local organisation that has to negotiate with a local authority or other body for a service level agreement? We can imagine the conversation: “We are not seeing the agreed number of clients; we are not getting things done on time,” and so on. If a small or medium-sized voluntary or community group, dealing with the council or another external body, was in that position, the agreement would be terminated.

Yet we are not talking about one household and an incompetent builder, or a small or medium-sized charity working with a council. We are talking about a failure, paid for by the tax-paying public and being subsidised massively on a multi-million pound basis. It is time that someone, somehow, somewhere—preferably the Government—carried the can for what has happened as the result of a deal between a private company and the Government, which is not working. Capita has not delivered on its contract with the Department for Work and Pensions. It has time and again displayed the fact that it is letting people down. At what point will the Government stand up, take notice of the constituents who are asking for help, and take action on an issue that is becoming more serious with every passing day?

In Penycae, another village in my constituency, a constituent suffers from terrible arthritis throughout her body, and is on lifelong medication as a result. Until last year, my constituent held a responsible, white-collar job. In June, her contract was terminated for reasons of medical capability. One would think that at that point she would receive support, but since she left her job in June she has been waiting on PIP. She has been waiting for Capita. She is completely unable to work and that has been confirmed by her GP and by hospital consultants. My constituent can provide personal reports, X-rays and supporting documents that make it crystal clear that she is entitled, in need and completely genuine; there is no doubt about it.

Why, then, is the system failing my constituent and so many others like her across Wales? The Government’s fact sheet on personal independence payments says:

“PIP is to help towards some of the extra costs arising from a health condition or disability.”

PIP, the replacement for disability living allowance put in place by the current Government, can be anything from £21 to £134 a week. It can be used to cover transport, care and all sorts of other costs that can be vital to those who are disabled or sick. By the Government’s own admission, PIP is support for people when they are unable to work because of a health condition or disability and need financial help. That is what the Government say PIP is, and that is what they claim Capita is providing.

The constituent I mentioned is still waiting for any kind of financial help. She is receiving no level of care from Capita or any other Government body. Since being forced to leave her job in June, she has been completely outside the system and is without any financial support. As a result, my constituent has lost her bank account and is experiencing the attention of debt recovery services. For Capita to tell someone like my constituent from Penycae that her case is in the queue, that a backlog is being experienced and that someone will “get to her when they can”—I believe those were the exact words—is absolutely not good enough. My constituent cannot wait another few months for money to come in. She needs it now. In fact, she has needed it since June, when she first applied. How many people can seriously be expected to live for nine or 10 months without any income? Yet that is what is happening in her case.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

It is right and proper that this debate is taking place, but PIP is not the only form of benefit; it is a benefit on top of other benefits. No income at all, which is what the hon. Lady said, is ever so slightly—I respectfully say—misleading. I accept that there is an issue, which I will come on to in my response, but the lady to whom she referred would have been able to get other benefits.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I would be delighted to put the Minister in contact with my constituent or, indeed, with all the current cases I have, and they could rightfully have that debate. PIP is a huge issue. I am sure that he is rather sorry that there are absolutely no Government Members here to defend him, so he has to do a little of his own work on that score this morning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

I really hope that the debate this morning does not deteriorate. I am not that sort of Minister. I genuinely want to help. I do not really mind who is in the Chamber; it is a question of whether we can get PIP right. Of course I will take up any cases that are raised here today, as I do on a regular basis when constituents write to me; the hon. Lady has also written to me many times.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I assure the Minister that I want this issue sorted, and I am only sorry that it has not been sorted sooner.

I am of course aware that assessments are complicated. I am under no illusions that such systems are easy to run, and they are not simple to understand. I am clear, however, that Capita is being given public money to provide a service. I called for the debate today because my constituents are being left without any information about their cases; they are waiting on calls that are not returned; and they have no way of highlighting their situation, complaining or seeking help. That is why they are coming to me and to other Members of Parliament.

I was also shocked to learn that Capita has not even set up an official hotline for MPs. When constituents come to me about problems with other public bodies, I am able to contact someone quickly. That is part of our job as Members of Parliament, and the hotlines provided to MPs are an important part of the contact system. Capita, the company providing PIP assessments for the entirety of Wales, does not provide such a service. When it was pushed, I was given a number, but it was made clear to me that it was not an official hotline. I am loth to bring up Atos in this debate. The Government recently scrapped the contract with Atos because it was not delivering, but even Atos had an official hotline set up and working.

The debate is not simply about backlogged services and Capita not estimating correctly or preparing adequately. It is clear from Capita’s entire handling of PIP assessments that it was not the right company for the job. How much public money is being spent every single day by the Government on the service? How much public money is being spent on this company that is not returning calls? How much public money is being spent on this company that is forcing cancer sufferers to cross their fingers through massive delays? How much public money is being spent on this company while it forces those too sick to work into debt?

To return to our analogy with household economics, Capita is not the slow or dodgy builder, or the little charity worrying how it will see all the people it needs to see because it has two people off sick one month; Capita is supplying all the contracts for PIP assessment in Wales, which is a multi-million pound contract. Capita is the middleman, the company between the doctor and financial support—in many ways, it is the company between the hospital and the debt collector. At the moment, we are not seeing it provide such a bridge or, in many cases, any bridge at all.

Over and over again, the Government have said that they need to save money, and yet they are spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on a company that is not delivering on its contract. At what point do the Government step in to ensure that the service is being provided?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane]

Again, things come down to due diligence and to the assessment of the problem by the Government when awarding the contract. In addition, in the north Wales situation, there was no mention of staff who can deal with mental health issues.

We talk about the vast numbers of people affected, so let us consider who they are. One of my constituents who had mental health problems was told that she could not have an assessment in her own home. She lives in north Wales, but she was told to go to the nearest assessment centre—in Cardiff. It takes me two hours and 36 minutes to get from Rhyl to London, but I could almost have gone from Rhyl to London and back again in the time that it would take that lady simply to get down to Cardiff. Would the Minister send someone from London up to Cumbria for an assessment test, because those are the time scales that we are talking about? That shows total disregard for the individuals involved.

Another individual in my constituency, who is wheelchair-bound, waited for six months, but her case had still not been sorted out. In that time, there were knock-on effects to other benefits and funding was taken off her; she lost her mobility allowance and so she lost her car. There she was, with mental health issues, in a wheelchair and stuck in a house. Things that help people with mental health issues include visiting relatives, joining voluntary organisations, going to a place of worship and getting out in nature, none of which she could do because her car was taken away. All the things that could have helped her were taken away from her by Government action, or inaction.

The rules for the terminally ill suggest that if they have seven months left to live, they are pestered and hounded, but if they have six months left, they will be left alone. That should not be the case. We should prioritise the people—

[Mike Penning]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Ruane]

No, I will not give way.

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman is being misleading.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. No one is misleading anyone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

I am sorry, Mr Owen; I am sure that was unintentional. This is rightly a passionate debate. I have referred in previous discussions to 28 days for terminal illness. That was completely unacceptable, and it was 10 days under disability living allowance. I told the Select Committee that the period would be below 10 days. That is where we are now, and that will continue.

[Chris Ruane]

The Minister talks about how things should happen; we are talking about how things are happening. Capita, which took the Government’s instructions, visited us last week and told us what I have just said. Perhaps the company got it wrong, but if it did the Minister should ask why the Government awarded a contract to a company that does not understand the basic rules of dealing with the dying.

I will move on. It is not just Labour Back Benchers from Wales who are raising the matter. The National Audit Office has said that

“the Department did not allow enough time to test whether the assessment process could handle large numbers of claims. As a result of this poor early operational performance, claimants face long and uncertain delays and the Department has had to delay the wider roll-out of the programme. Because it may take…time to resolve the delays, the Department has increased the risk that the programme will not deliver value for money in the longer term.”

The programme was introduced to cut costs by £2.6 billion. The National Audit Office is now saying that because of the terms and conditions and the fact that the rules were not set properly in the first place, value for money in the longer term—the whole raison d’être for the initiative—will be undermined. The NAO continued:

“A far higher proportion of new claims than was expected contained information that conflicted with existing data on the claimant held by DWP, leading to delays in processing new claims…Claimants were taking longer than expected to return claim forms”.

That should have been predicted and there should have been research before the contract was issued. The failings are the failings of this Government, and the Minister may have to fess up and say that he got it wrong. I ask him to be open, truthful and to sort out this terrible problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I do not think that this has been mentioned so far in the debate, but Capita did not only meet us last week; it met many of us before the introduction of PIPs and it made certain commitments and promises, based on the assumptions that it had been given by the DWP that none of these things would happen. We were given assurances that there would not be these kinds of delays, that it had the right plans in place, that it knew what it was doing and that there would be no repetition of the mistakes made by other private contractors such as Atos. It failed miserably on that, and ultimate responsibility does come to the Minister. I am sure he accepts that, and we respect his willingness to take it on board, so as the Minister responding to the debate today, he does not need to go through the history of the benefit. We know that.

[Mike Penning]

I am not going to do that; give me a chance.

[Kevin Brennan]

Good, but I am just giving the Minister that warning not to go through the history of the benefit but, yes, to deal with his responsibility, who is responsible—

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) on a fine, eloquent and valuable speech.

Well, here we are again. Some hon. Members will recall our PIP debate with the now former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she was the Minister responsible for disability issues. We discussed the mobility needs of people in residential care, and eventually she performed a U-turn—eventually.

I like this Minister and think that he is sincere and conscientious. We can trust that he will take full account of the debate and make timely changes. We are here because of delays in dealing with our constituents’ cases, and we know about the concerns of the National Audit Office and the Work and Pensions Committee. Our particular concern is Wales, where there are higher levels of disability and long-term illness. I have had cases, but I will not go into them, because we have heard sufficient detail about how bad the situation is. I will, however, ask a number of questions. I have had a response from Capita, although it is not completely satisfactory. I worry about our constituents who do not think of going to see their MP, because there must be many of those—proportionately more than actually come through our doors.

As has been mentioned, there are delays. People are told that they will be paid from the date of their claim, but the problem is that people have current needs, and jam tomorrow, even if it is delivered, is no use. Where there are delays, are claimants given timely information about how long their cases will take? Knowing how long the case will take would at least be some comfort. It is a grim question, but I have also been looking for figures on how many claimants in Wales have died waiting for their claim. It would be useful to have the data sets as soon as possible, although I know that we are in the early stages, and I have had access to some of the management information. Too often, we have data sets for the UK in general, but we are concerned with Wales and it would be useful to have those data sets broken down as far as our country is concerned.

Another issue for Wales is rurality, which makes PIP particularly important for people’s mobility needs. There is a practical question of the travel time for people who are assessed in centres, or the extra travel time taken by Capita staff who have to go to remote locations in rural areas. Atos has chosen a slightly different emphasis from Capita, by doing more assessments in centres rather than home visits. Will the Department eventually conduct a compare and contrast exercise on Atos’s and Capita’s handling of the matter?

I had an interesting discussion with Dr Duckworth, the managing director for PIP at Capita, on the radio this morning. He reported, as we have heard, that Capita now thinks that face-to-face interviews take two hours rather than one. Will the Minister tell us, perhaps in writing, how the planning process worked and how such an alarming underestimate was reached? Any planning process must be somewhat speculative, but if one hour was planned for and the outturn is two hours, it seems to me to be a gross underestimate.

I understand that Capita is recruiting more staff, and I heard the other day that staff from the Department for Work and Pensions are helping out. That is good; in such a situation, it is all hands to the pump. However, are there additional costs, and who pays them? Given that the contract is with a private organisation, what penalties are being imposed on Capita? Has the Minister made any assessment of its willingness, or otherwise, to continue with the work? We saw what happened with Atos, which pulled out of a different sort of assessment because of the difficulties that it faced.

Furthermore, I understand that Capita is conducting more paper-based assessments. Initially, Capita planned to do 70% of assessments face to face, and then we heard that the figure was 99%, but I understand now that, to hurry matters along, some paper-based assessments are being made. That is where we came in when we discussed PIP in the first place. One of the unsatisfactory aspects of disability living allowance was that it was too often a paper-based exercise, which produced variable outcomes, to say the least. PIP was sold on the basis that it would involve a quality, individual, face-to-face assessment, that there would be reviews and that the system would be better all around, but I worry that we may be going back to where we started.

I referred earlier to the need for data sets. It would be useful if the Minister gave us a snapshot of claimant numbers in Wales—perhaps not now, because he may not have the figures to hand—and the number of claims outstanding. Usefully, the Department produced a document entitled “Personal Independence Payment: Management Information” in February 2014, which some hon. Members may have seen. The results for the UK are interesting and rather startling. I do not know whether the figures are still current, because they were published in February and we are now in April. I see from one of the tables that in December 2013, there were 229,700 new PIP claims, and 43,800 new claim decisions were made in respect of all new PIP claims. That is, as far as I can see, a rate of about 20%.

[Mike Penning]

Perhaps I can help the Chamber. We estimate that 233,000 claims have been made, of which 50% have now been decided. Of the terminally ill, 99% have been concluded, which is still not high enough.

[Hywel Williams]

I am glad to hear that that is the rate. Of course, with people who are terminally ill, we want to see a rate of 100%. I also had a look at the figures from the PIP reassessment and impact report from December 2012, which gives a forecast for March 2014 of 87,000 reassessments, with 180,000 reassessments in the March 2012 strategy. Perhaps the Minister can give us further information.

A particular issue in Wales is assessment through the medium of Welsh. I put a question to the Department some time ago, and was told that the assessments would follow the Department’s Welsh language scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

Thank you very much indeed for calling me to speak, Mr Owen. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this very important debate.

Let me say at the outset that it is very important that this type of debate takes place, not least because we can get better information on the record. I know that some hon. Members have not raised individual constituency cases during this debate; some have, but some have not. If they have not done so, please would they give us that information? We will be in contact with Members during the course of today and tomorrow, so that we can pick up on those cases.

I will start today by touching on the point that was raised in the debate about colleagues coming to me and getting responses. I think that it was raised by the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and I thank her for her kind comments about how we have responded to colleagues, not only in Westminster Hall today but at other times. Actually, it is very useful for me as the Minister to see what goes through, because if individual MPs write to me then I—as Members probably know—write them an individual reply, and while I cannot deal with every individual case, it does give me a better feel for what is going on.

With that in mind, I will go back from Westminster Hall today and act; my officials have heard what hon. Members have said and they will now hear what I am about to say. The hotline will happen. It is not acceptable that there is not a hotline in place. We will get on and do that.

I will touch, quite rightly, on what was probably the most sensitive issue raised in the debate, which is that of the cases concerning the terminally ill. I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for her kind comments about the actions that I have taken on such cases in the short time that I have been the Minister. I was appalled—I have said that before publicly as well as privately—at the length of time that it was taking for cases concerning the terminally ill to be assessed and for payments to be made. I think that when I arrived in this post, the period was around 28 days. Under the previous disability living allowance system, which was not strictly comparable, the period would have been about 10 days. I want it to come down; I have anecdotal evidence that it is around three to eight days now. As I said to the Work and Pensions Committee, an average of five days is perhaps where we need to be. We need to ensure that these people who so desperately need help get it quickly.

I have worked particularly closely with Macmillan Cancer Support to develop some new methodologies. For instance, it is very difficult for someone visiting a terminally ill person to be on the phone to someone else while they are talking to the person they are looking after; that is particularly difficult with Macmillan cases. So we are going to set up a pilot whereby we give Macmillan the forms there and then, so that they have them on file and we can get them back and through the system more quickly. Macmillan said that it did not like the call system; it kept their nurses and other health professionals waiting for too long. So we are going to work with Macmillan and pilot that new scheme. And we will move from that scheme to secure portable document format, or PDF. That is what most of our GPs use when they deal with insurance companies or anybody else. Hopefully we will continue to review matters and we can continue to reduce the time that it takes to deal with these cases.

In an intervention, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said that he hoped I would not just read out the speech that had been prepared for me. He knows me better than that; I have never read a speech in this House that has been prepared for me. I will continue to respond to Members as best I can and, of course, if I am unable to answer the questions in the time that I am allowed, we will write to individual colleagues and ensure that they have the information they need for their constituents.

Do I, as the Minister of State responsible for this portfolio, take responsibility for it? Yes, I do. That is the way that Ministers should act. There was a former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in Westminster Hall earlier, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). He is not in Westminster Hall at the moment, but I went to him when I was a Back-Bench MP and said to him, “You are the Secretary of State. You’ve got to take responsibility.” That is exactly what he did.

Whether I make the right decision or the wrong decision will be for others to decide. However, one of the reasons that I wanted this portfolio was to make a difference. The old DLA system was broken; that was alluded to by the hon. Member for Cardiff West. Under that system, less than 6% of claimants had face-to-face interviews; most people were given a paper-based assessment for life. In the case of some people, that was absolutely right and proper, but for an awful lot of people it was not. For instance, it was particularly bad for people with mental health issues, because they could not get the upper rate on the old DLA, really. With PIP, they will be able to.

The hon. Member for Newport East asked me about the roll-out of this system. It has been rolled out in Wales; it is out, in its entirety, for reconsiderations as well as for new claims. So, the one area that I can see the new system in its entirety is Wales. We will break down the data and ensure that it is available to Welsh MPs, so that we can provide feedback. It is too early to give the full basis of the data, and the Audit Commission has also said that.

[Mark Tami]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I will just finish this point on the Audit Commission, because the Audit Commission was quoted several times. As I was saying, the commission also said that it was too early to see whether the new system would be value for money, because the information is not here yet. I just wanted to balance that argument a bit.

[Mark Tami]

Before the Minister moves off the subject of mental health, one of the other important issues is that, depending on what is wrong with them, people have good days and bad days. It is important to get an all-round picture of their issues, rather than just an on-the-spot assessment—“Yes, they’re OK. Fine.”

[Mike Penning]

I completely taken on board what the hon. Gentleman says. Indeed, what is just as important is that people with mental disabilities often have other disabilities as well and they need to be treated as an individual case, with all their disabilities considered in their entirety.

We are working very closely with Capita. The Capita model is different from the Atos model. As was alluded to by the shadow Minister, Capita is doing 60% of its work within the home and 40% in other assessments. It is completely unacceptable if someone is being asked to travel the distances that we have heard about today. The maximum time someone should travel is 90 minutes. In rural communities, which were referred to in the debate, even that length of time is really difficult, because travelling for 90 minutes in a big capital city is completely different from travelling for the same time in a rural community. I have asked my officials to begin a review today about the access issues that people are having. They will review not only the time that it takes for people to go to an assessment centre but the time it takes for Capita to come to a person’s home, because travelling time is not considered as part of the time for the assessment. I will come on to that in a moment.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Can the Minister tell us how bad Capita has to get before, in his estimation, any fine would be imposed upon it by the Government?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

If the hon. Lady will be patient, I have another four minutes to speak and I will certainly address that issue.

With the contracts that were issued, there is not a change to a paper-based system. From day one, the perception was that the split should be 75:25 between face-to-face interviews and paper-based assessments. I have said that to the Work and Pensions Committee before. With the DLA, only 6% of claimants were interviewed face to face and nationally we are around about 97% for face-to-face interviews. So there is not a movement away from face-to-face interviews; actually, where we are trying to get to is where we were supposed to be in the first place, which is around 75% of interviews being conducted face to face and 25% of claimants being dealt with by paper-based assessments.

The contract with Capita allows for penalties and we are imposing financial penalties on it where it is not meeting its targets. That process is taking place now and we will continue with it. However, the best thing to do is for us to work with Capita to get accurate assessments.

The point about accuracy is the one that I will touch on for the remaining few minutes. One type of issue that we have is quality issues. We have been really tough, and previous Ministers were very tough, on both Capita and Atos about PIP regarding quality. Because of that, those companies have been very concerned—I have used the word “frightened” before, but they are certainly concerned—about ensuring they get things right, which is one of the reasons why we have nowhere near the number of appeals that we may have expected or that were made under previous benefit systems.

One reason for that is that we have put our staff into the offices of companies, particularly those of Capita, and we will probably do that elsewhere. It gives staff the confidence to make the decisions on the paper-based assessments. Very often, although staff feel they have the information in front of them, they are not sure about making a decision because they fear they will be hit on quality—“The audit will come down and say we should have done this”—so they have pushed the case through to a face-to-face interview. That is actually increasing the delays. We want to give people confidence; that is why our officials are there.

The question was asked, “Where do these officials come from?” Many of them are actually officials waiting for these decisions to come back, so I have a capacity of people sitting there and waiting for decisions to come back. That is why we are putting people at the right grade into the offices of Capita to ensure that we can get better movement and that we get the split down to a manageable one; I hope it will be a 75:25 split.

We will probably announce the review later on today, if not tomorrow, outlining who will do the review and how we move on from it.

The truth of the matter is that there will be people who benefit from PIP and there will be people who do not benefit from it. However, what they need is decisions and we need to communicate with them much better. We are introducing a text system so that people will be better informed as to where they are within the queue system. That is slightly more complicated in certain parts of the country than others. We can text—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. I am very grateful to the Minister, and to Members, for what was a full debate. The Minister has indicated that he will write to Members.