Jobcentre Plus

Pamela Nash Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dame Anne Begg]

I think people would be surprised to learn that Jobcentre Plus does not routinely record the reason why someone leaves benefit. As far as JCP is concerned, because the primary focus is on benefit off-flows, the important thing is that the person is no longer on a job-seeking benefit. However, as my hon. Friend says, why are they no longer on a benefit? It could be because they have a new job—that is what we hope—and it is possible that they have transferred to a different benefit because they have become ill, but they might be in prison or have gone into the black economy. We do not know, and nor does JCP because it does not gather that information or track claimants’ destinations. We think it is important that JCP does that in order to judge how efficient and effective its work is.

At some point, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, off-benefit is likely to cease to make much sense as a performance measure, particularly with the introduction of universal credit. I think Members agree that a system that merges out-of-work benefits and in-work tax credits, and in which benefits taper off gradually as earnings increase, would be a huge step forward. That is what universal credit is intended to do, but it will require creative thinking from the Government about new performance measures for JCP.

The Department says that it will think about how to formulate such measures once universal credit is implemented—whenever that is going to be. We think that it should be thinking about and testing them now, not leaving it until much later. Even if universal credit continues to slow down, the Committee certainly thinks that the development of a new measure is worth while anyway, whether in conjunction with universal credit or not. The Department must pilot more meaningful performance measures that track JCP’s effectiveness at getting people into work and helping them to stay there for the long term. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that the Government understand the importance of achieving longer-term positive employment outcomes.

Another part of our report that has received quite a lot of attention—perhaps because many Members have experience of it in their constituencies—is Jobcentre Plus’s use of sanctions. There is an inherent tension in what JCP does, between helping and supporting people to find work on the one hand, and, on the other, enforcing strict rules, including financial penalties for claimants deemed not to be trying hard enough to find work. Such is the everyday experience of the Jobcentre Plus adviser and the job-seeking benefit claimant, and it can make for an uneasy relationship.

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about sanctions data? In preparation for this debate, I requested figures on sanctions from my local jobcentre. The staff there said that they had not received any data back since March and so are themselves unable to keep track of the number of sanctions being issued and the reasons for them.

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[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

Let me echo my colleagues and say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Amess.

I will not replicate my colleagues’ remarks about the report, but it will not surprise Members to hear that I agree with the vast majority of it. I congratulate the Committee’s Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), on all its work, but particularly on this report and on giving us the opportunity to debate it today.

The first issue I want to concentrate on is support for claimants with health conditions and disabilities. In one of the report’s recommendations, the Committee asks the Government to take urgent action to improve the level of jobcentre support for claimants with health conditions and disabilities, including by addressing unacceptably high work-related activity group case loads.

One of the most heart-breaking things I have seen in my four years as a Member of Parliament is the number of people coming to my surgery, or requesting a home visit because of their health conditions, who it is clear—even to the naked eye—are not fit for work, but who are still put in the work-related activity group for ESA. Let me give one example from my constituency, although it represents the stories of many other people there. My office spoke this morning to a constituent who wants to remain anonymous. She is 59, and she had to stop work due to ill health. There has been a series of errors since she applied for ESA.

My constituent, who suffers from arthritis and panic attacks, among other health conditions, attended an assessment, but she did not receive a copy of her assessment report afterwards—I have heard the same point made repeatedly over the past four years. She was just told that she had “passed” the medical. Does that mean that she is healthy, or that she will receive the benefit? It is an ambiguous term.

My constituent was given no information about the difference between contribution-based and income-based ESA. After 365 days, she was moved from one to the other with no notice. The only indication that something had changed was the unexpected drop of £118 per week in the amount of money going into her bank account. That is an extremely large amount for a low-income household.

I will not go any further, because I may be drifting a little from the report, but I ask the Minister to look at what has been a recurring theme today: the data and analysis available on the success of jobcentres and the DWP. Will she publish more information so we can look at the problems? If we do not know what they are, how can whoever is in government seek to fix them?

Another issue is support for those in the work-related activity group. There are some who clearly should be in that group. However, the type of work they can do is severely limited, although they might be able to work with the correct support. My understanding is that that is exactly why this policy is in place—to allow these people to go back to work. If they can contribute, therefore, they should be supported so that they can do so. However, the Committee’s inquiry found that relatively few resources were devoted to providing that support in jobcentres; in fact, the figure is one adviser to every 600 claimants. Is the Department looking at improving the support available to help these people back to work?

Another issue related to ESA, which I became aware of recently, is the actual average clearance time. The headline figures for ESA show that, since the Government came to power, waiting times have gone down. However, I asked the House of Commons Library to look into that, and it told me that the figure relates only to the time between a new claim being made and a decision being taken on whether the person should have an assessment. The total time, if we look at how long people have to wait for a work capability assessment, is 118.9 days on average. What is the Department doing to bring that figure down?

I want to say something briefly about sanctions. Again, I will not replicate what has been said, and I agree with much of what my colleagues have said. However, I would ask the Minister to comment on the repeated claims from Jobcentre Plus whistleblowers, which we have heard about in the press and here today, that there are quotas or that there is pressure on staff to impose a certain number of sanctions on their client base.

I also want to talk about the fact that there are no crisis loans any more, with the localisation that was touched on in the report. In Scotland the Scottish welfare fund is the replacement, but that specifically may not give money to people who have been sanctioned. I simply want to put the question to the Minister: what are those people supposed to do? How are they supposed to eat, with no income at all? When people are convicted of a crime we do not starve them; yet people who have been sanctioned turn up at my office—and the vast majority get the sanction overturned on appeal, for reasons such as we have heard today, and because of mistakes—and they are left in dire straits.

I am ashamed sometimes to be an MP in a country where all I can do is send those people to a food bank. They are sent for payday loans. They should not be getting those if they have no salary, and if they are given them that is shocking. Even worse, they often go to criminal loan sharks. That is the one business that has thrived during the recession, which is a disgrace. What does the Minister expect people who have been sanctioned to do, to meet their basic needs for survival?

The report examines in depth the flexible support fund and its uses. It replaced a few other funds; many of the relevant people would have been affected more recently by the removal of the return to work credit, although I realise that that was a much longer-term support for people returning to work. I worry about some constituents who receive a job offer—which is happening increasingly; I welcome the fact that unemployment is reducing in my constituency and there are many new businesses, and the town centre is more thriving than I can remember. However, some constituents find it difficult to go back to work, because they do not know how they will survive for the first month.

I have been told by my local jobcentre that the usual flexible support fund payment is rarely more than £50 for travel to work. Housing benefit runs on for a month, too, but apart from that there is little, if any, support to enable someone to pay bills or perhaps buy clothes for a new job—or, indeed, lunches for the first month. Being out of work often causes a drop in confidence, so people want to make a good impression and not to have to worry about such basic things in the first month of a new job.

Work experience contributes to building up confidence. I know that the Government have made work experience programmes part of Get Britain Working, but in my experience there are few opportunities for young people to get such experience. What are jobcentres doing to increase opportunities for placements? I am setting up a work experience programme in my constituency, and letters to more than 400 local businesses are being produced as I speak. That is being done in conjunction with the jobcentre, which has difficulty finding enough work experience placements for the people who want them. Some of my colleagues are setting up similar projects in their constituencies, but what is happening at Government level, so that it will not matter whether MPs spend time doing that, and people will not need their MP to set up work experience projects to make placements available to them?

I found work experience useful, because I was on the dole at one point after university. The jobcentre told me I would be sanctioned if I did voluntary work, because I would not be spending that time looking for jobs; however, since then, there has been cross-party support for and understanding of the idea that voluntary work and work experience can lead to full-time sustainable employment.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on setting up work experience in her constituency. I have done that too, for 18 to 24-year-olds, starting next week for two weeks. It is the first time I have done it, but I have been asked whether I would consider something for older people. We need to think of them as well.

[Pamela Nash]

Definitely. The work experience programme that I am setting up is aimed at young people, but it is not just for them—it is certainly for others too. At the other end of the age range in the work market, and particularly with the pension age going up, there are many people who want to work a bit longer but are having difficulty finding jobs. That affects every age group in between, too.

In fact, there was a good news story from my local jobcentre when I visited last Friday. A gentleman had been out of work for 20 years, and, with the new programmes, one of the advisers who recognised his need could spend much longer with him. He has now started a full-time job.

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) said that Select Committees are often negative because of their role in holding the Government to account, and I think that that often applies to Opposition MPs as well; we appear a bit crabbit, to use a Scottish word, and negative. However, holding the Government to account is our job. I certainly do not think that everything is wrong, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Finally, I want to comment briefly on the Work programme, which comes outside the work of Jobcentre Plus. My area has very good and very bad examples of the way it is run. I am angered when I go to the jobcentre and staff tell me how good the success rate is for people leaving the Work programme after two years, and being found work quickly. There are people who are ready and desperate to work, but who were not given the support they needed during the Work programme.

When I meet constituents who have been on the programme, they always tell me two things. First, they tell me that they can end the two years without even a CV—which is ridiculous—or basic IT skills. Secondly, I am constantly told about their intention to apply for training; there are many positions in security in my area, so they might want to go for a Security Industry Authority badge. Yet that is not available—nor is any small cost for training that might keep their skills up to date or improve their job opportunities.

If those people had been under the care of the jobcentre at the time in question, those things would have been available to them, but the contract that the Work programme providers have does not include such provision, and obviously the providers will save costs whenever they can. That is relevant to the debate, because the situation increases the work of the jobcentre, when the people in question go back. If the Government are not going to scrap the Work programme as it stands, will they take another look at the contracts, and make it clear what is expected of Work programme providers in the way of support for participants? Can that be published? Are there guidelines for the providers that Members of Parliament can see?

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot talked about negative comments. On Friday I visited my local jobcentre, as I do regularly—my office is a couple of doors away and it is no accident that I get most of my casework from there. The staff were excited about the prospect of becoming a digital jobcentre. We saw the work being done, and I think much of what is happening will improve the service for my constituents, so I look forward to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess, as everybody has said. I thank the Select Committee on Work and Pensions for its work on the report that we have been discussing. The Government welcome the Committee’s endorsement of the role of Jobcentre Plus in a reformed welfare system. Through the recession and into the period of recovery, it has provided good value for money and excellent levels of service to claimants and employers.

With employment rising to record levels, unemployment falling and sustained reductions in the number of people on welfare benefits, Jobcentre Plus continues to be a model other countries follow. As the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, they use it in Germany. They totally copied it and are following our model, as other countries are coming to follow what we do. More recently, the creation of Jobcentre Plus is reckoned to have raised national GDP by 0.1%—worth £5.5 billion to the UK economy by 2015.

The achievements of Jobcentre Plus stand as a testament to the hard work and dedication of the Department’s staff. I thank the staff who came into work today to ensure that all our jobcentres are open and that everybody who requests to see an adviser can do so. Despite staff reductions, Jobcentre Plus continues to make a major contribution to improvements in our labour market. We know that more people are working now than ever before: a record 30.5 million, up 780,000 over the past year and 1.7 million since 2010. That is a record-breaking number of people into work in a year, and it must be down not only to the hard-working staff of Jobcentre Plus but to all the people working so hard in the welfare to work industry.

The unemployment rate has fallen in every country and region of the UK over the last year. We have had the largest annual fall in long-term unemployment since 1998: 108,000 in just one year. The Work programme, which was set up in June 2011, has made a major contribution to that fall—the biggest since 1998, as I said. We have seen 1.5 million people go through the Work programme. Of those, 550,000 have got a job start and 300,000 have gone into sustained work. That is a significant contribution. I agree with the National Audit Office that the programme had a slow start, but it has improved considerably and its stretching targets will be achieved by its end.

If people have read the NAO report, they will know that the Work programme will actually be 12% better than the flexible new deal and 17% better than the pathways scheme once we have completed our work. It is therefore undoubtedly better than any other programme that has gone before, despite its being talked down. It is hard for me to reconcile what I have heard today with what the NAO agreed, which has to be welcomed.

When I looked into the sanctions applied under the Labour Government’s pathways into work scheme, I saw that they were significantly higher for ESA claimants. It is interesting to note the difference between what has been said today and what the previous Government delivered.

[Pamela Nash]

I admit that I have not seen the NAO figures, but is there any specific focus on youth unemployment? Although unemployment figures are coming down—I completely welcome that and the success in my constituency—youth unemployment is not coming down at anything close to the same speed, particularly not in my constituency. Is there any focus on how the Work programme is affecting youth unemployment?

[Esther McVey]

If the hon. Lady had looked at the youth unemployment figures, she would welcome them as much as I have. We have had nine consecutive months of decreasing unemployment, and the figure is now nearly 100,000 lower than at the general election. We have given significant focus and support. We have put in place a youth contract that helps people with work experience—I am delighted that people now agree how important that is—and 180,000 people have now gone on work experience. Of those, around 150,000 have been young people—other people are eligible—and 40% have got a job. So I feel I have answered the hon. Lady’s question—

[Pamela Nash]

You haven’t answered it.

[Esther McVey]

We have done a considerable amount of work and we continue to do so. That is key and should be welcomed. Youth unemployment has fallen across the country.

[Pamela Nash]

The rate is three times slower.

[Esther McVey]

We know that at the heart of the Government’s plan is the desire to build a stronger, more competitive economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

No, I will not. As I have said, not only was it a point of order and not only was it in the last Select Committee—I never said that there would be an independent further review. That was not said. And of course the Matt Oakley review will come out. I said it will come out in due course and that will be this month. The right hon. Member for East Ham asked about that. When we have that report, we will all see what recommendations it makes and what issues have been brought forward. Despite Members here today saying that they did not think that the Oakley review was an in-depth review, yes it was. It was about communications and process; all those things are key.

As I said, we continue to look into these issues, because as was said—it may have been said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Select Committee—at the end of the day what we need is people to comply and to do what is right to get a job. The ultimate aim would be that less sanctions are given, because that is what we want. We put more and more support into the system; we work with people, and the claimant commitment is there to do that; we see what people’s needs are; and we have got to make sure that we are working with voluntary organisations and charitable organisations, and understanding the needs of the individual and also their vulnerabilities. When we have got all that right, then we will all be going in the right direction.

However, what we know we have got right is the extra support and getting more people into work than ever before. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) said that she had spoken to people who had been unemployed for 10, 15 or 25 years, and she also said how delighted those people now are to have a job, and that it has transformed their lives. Those are the type of people I meet all the time; people who were left on benefits and some people would say that they were forgotten about, and that they were not reached out to and connected with. Well, we said that we, as a Conservative party, do not agree with that; we totally do not agree with it. We will reach out and support them, and help them to do as best they can. But it is a system in the round; it is about support, sanctions and what we can do to get people to support themselves.

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the Minister for giving way and, yes, those are the good news stories and I love meeting those constituents. However, have there been constituents who have gone to her surgery because they have been sanctioned? Maybe they were sanctioned rightly, but maybe she suspects that they were sanctioned wrongly. What advice has she given them about how to feed themselves that week, and how did that make her feel?

[Esther McVey]

In what we have heard today in some of the stories about whether sanctions were applied or not, I know that some of them would have come under good cause and they would not have had a sanction applied. Where I would send people who are sanctioned, as do Jobcentre Plus, is hardship funds; they could get support, although the case has to be worked through. Why do people continue to sign on for benefits and remain on the claimant count? Because they would not get that hardship fund, which is either 60% or 80% of the benefit, if they do not. That is what I would say: “How do we support you? How do we get you back re-engaged?” I would also work out the vulnerability of the claimant.

[Pamela Nash]

rose—

[Esther McVey]

I will not take another intervention for the time being; I will move forward with some of these answers.

Claimants are given the opportunity to explain why they have not complied with a requirement. If they provide good reason, they will not get sanctioned. Once sanctioned, claimants are informed of how to apply for these hardship payments. Vulnerable claimants, including any claimant with responsibility for a child, can receive payments immediately. We believe that we get the vast majority of our decisions right. In 2013, our decision makers considered nearly 2 million cases that were brought to them, but they imposed just over a million sanctions. So the information comes from the adviser and it goes to a decision maker, who looks at all the evidence before deciding whether a sanction will be given. Of those cases, only 130,000 were overturned on reconsideration or appeal—just over 13%—not the figures that I heard from the Opposition Benches; I am not sure where they get those from.