Jobcentres and the DWP Estate

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul J. Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Evans, for calling me to speak in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for securing this debate on such an important matter affecting the city of Glasgow and all across the United Kingdom.

It is clear that the situation in Glasgow is stark and acute. While the UK unemployment rate is 4.8%, in Glasgow it is 8.5%, essentially twice the UK rate. Justification for the closure and rationalisation of jobcentres is based on the idea that jobcentre provision in Glasgow is higher than the average across the UK, but it is clear that that is necessary to deal with the long-term, intractable problem of structural unemployment in Glasgow. I am utterly incredulous that the Government feel that they are justified in cutting the estate in this manner or that it will in any way benefit or enhance the service provision. How on earth will this help to deal with the long-term problem of structural unemployment?

While we have seen the welcome reduction of unemployment rates in Glasgow, it has left a hard kernel of people who are particularly challenged in getting back into the jobs market. They need much more intensive and tailored support to meet their specialist needs. It is absurd to suggest that we provide that by continuing to frustrate them by rationalising the jobcentre estate. Some of the areas that the hon. Gentleman referred to, including ones in my constituency such as Possilpark and Carntyne West and Haghill, have the highest Scottish index of multiple deprivation child poverty rates—up to 50% in some cases. Families are already challenged by severe problems in their lives, and to further frustrate their ability to care for themselves in this way is utterly appalling in a modern society.

We have seen the justification that some of the jobcentres in Glasgow are unfit for purpose and unable to accommodate additional supplementary uses. PCS has surveyed and assessed that, and it was found to be untrue. The Maryhill jobcentre is well integrated. It has several rooms that are under-utilised, but it has a number of well integrated services with Glasgow Life, Momentum, Shaw Trust, Homestart and Wyndford hub, including Possilpoint in my constituency, where the service provision transfers across the borders.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for giving way and apologise, Mr Evans, for being late: I was detained in the Chamber. I echo the hon. Gentleman’s tribute to the fantastic work of Maryhill Jobcentre and the disappointment that it is to close. Does he share my concern that this might not be the end? Will he join me in asking the Minister to guarantee that Springburn jobcentre in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, to which Maryhill users are being redirected, will not be under threat, and that there will now be a clear process of transition, advice and support for users who have to make the switch from one jobcentre to another?

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that pertinent point about the potential transfer of services from Maryhill to Springburn jobcentre in my constituency. When I reflected on the history of my constituency in my maiden speech last week, I noted with some dismay that it went from having the largest locomotive works in Europe to now having the largest jobcentre in Europe. Although that is perhaps not an asset to be particularly proud of, it is entirely necessary, because my constituency faces some of the highest structural employment rates in this country. He deals with similar issues in parts of his constituency.

Although we have heard the justification for moving to a so-called super-jobcentre in Springburn, we have also heard the announcement that critical back-office staff in Springburn will be cut; I understand that some 200 redundancies are being consulted on. Although the Department has assured us that there will be no compulsory redundancies, I cannot see how practical that is, given that the consultation includes cuts to 280 frontline and desk-based staff in jobcentres in Glasgow.

Although the idea of centralising facilities may seem superficially attractive on a map, anyone with a cursory knowledge of Glasgow’s geography and how dysfunctional its public transport system is will be well aware that travelling from Maryhill to Springburn is an utterly arduous journey even for people of fit body like me. I have made the journey to Maryhill regularly because my Army Reserve barracks is there, and I have found that on average it takes 90 minutes to two hours to complete the journey.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

When Members representing Glasgow constituencies during the last Parliament visited senior DWP officials at the jobcentre in Laurieston, I jokingly asked, “Did you use Google Maps to work this out?”, to which they said, “Yes.” Does the hon. Gentleman share my dismay that they based their decision on Google Maps?

[Mr Sweeney]

I think it is highly likely that they did. It would be utterly bizarre for anyone with any knowledge of Glasgow geography to conclude that it is a practical proposition for people who live in Maryhill catchment to attend services in Springburn. The bus system in Glasgow radiates from the centre; capacity to move across the north of the city is highly limited. The nature of the public transport system in Glasgow is another issue.

[Chris Stephens]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that not only did the DWP use Google Maps, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) said, but the information on Google Maps was outdated, and some bus services that it advertised no longer operate in our city?

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. In recent months, First Glasgow, the predominant bus operator in Glasgow, has cut a number of vital routes that might otherwise have facilitated those journeys. My mum lives in Springburn and works in Clarkston, and she often tells me of the arduous journeys that she makes across the city using First buses. Buses are regularly cancelled arbitrarily, or drivers change. There is no reliability or resilience in the public transport system; using it as a justification for rationalising the estate across Glasgow is highly risky.

Perhaps the DWP’s genuine motive is cost-driven. It is not about facilitating improved access; it is a cost-driven exercise to reduce Department overheads and, in the process, to frustrate those trying to access services, in order to reduce claimant rates and benefits being paid to citizens in Glasgow, increasing their concomitant despair, dismay and psychological ill-health. The proposals are utterly unsound, and I urge the Minister to reconsider on a practical basis.

I offer a solution: collocation, which has been advocated by a number of agencies, including the union PCS and Citizens Advice. For example, as a new Member, I have been looking for somewhere to establish a constituency office, which is more easily said than done, particularly in Glasgow North East, where the number of retail units is not huge. I looked at one location in Saracen Street in the heart of Possilpark, one of the areas of highest social deprivation in the United Kingdom, never mind Glasgow or Scotland. I did so for a particular reason: I wanted to make a statement that I was there to serve the community of highest need in my constituency.

I noted that in that street alone, there is a closed-down citizens advice bureau, as well as a unit owned by North Glasgow Housing Association and leased to Jobs & Business Glasgow, which in turn sublets it to Skills Development Scotland. Full rent is paid on the unit, but it is occupied only two days a week; it is being under-utilised. It is there for the taking. Why on earth could the DWP not engage with the agencies to use that opportunity for collocation at minimal cost, sustaining the same footprint at a fraction of the price? If it is true that the idea is to re-deploy instead of reducing the number of jobs, surely that would be an essentially cost-neutral exercise that would maintain the footprint while ensuring provision for the people who need it most and dealing with the intractable problem of unemployment in our city.

[Chris Stephens]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about collocation. Does he agree that collocation should have been discussed by the DWP, the Scottish Government, local authorities and other organisations before consulting on closures?

[Mr Sweeney]

Yes, I absolutely agree. Surely the presumption should be in favour of maintaining the footprint at all costs. Any reduction in the estate should be considered only as a final measure once all other possible mitigation options have been exhausted. It is clear to me after even cursory engagement with trying to set up a constituency office that there is ample opportunity out there to utilise alternative measures to maintain the footprint by co-operating with other agencies occupying the same space. That would be a great and worthwhile measure to explore as a first instance. I urge the Minister to engage with all Glasgow Members and city councillors to broker such negotiations as a matter of urgency. Opportunities in Glasgow are ample, and we should consider them in Glasgow and across the United Kingdom to maintain the footprint and operate with efficiency by having an integrated approach to collocation. I am absolutely in favour of that.

The justification for reducing face-to-face engagement is an increasing shift to using IT services. We know that that is a myth. Anyone who has watched the film “I, Daniel Blake” will be aware that among the people who have to deal with and engage with such services, it is not the case. The DWP has failed to understand the fundamental reality of unemployment: there is a cyclical component and a structural component. Obviously, as the economy has recovered, the cyclical component has decreased, but the structural component has remained, particularly in Glasgow. The underlying rate of unemployment is still high: indeed, twice the national average. Those people are generally unable to access IT facilities easily, nor are they necessarily IT-literate. That is why we need to maintain face-to-face services. PCS consultation and research backs that up, determining that the most effective measure for returning people to the jobs market was a face-to-face account management offer through DWP jobcentres. We must maintain that level of service. An online system is not a substitute.

These are the people whom we need to support the most. They may be using library IT facilities, which are so oversubscribed in Glasgow that time limits on users have been introduced. People who are already unsure and unconfident about using IT facilities are now time-limited—much as you might want to time-limit me, Mr Evans—in utilising them. Imagine the stress associated with not only filling out a complex and convoluted form but doing so under the pressure of a ticking clock. That is clearly not a good situation. It would be much preferable if those facilities were available through a face-to- face consultation.

To draw my points together, it is clear that the consultation is a sham, driven by the preconceived outcome of reducing the estate. It is not about consultation on mitigation in any meaningful way, as the collocation option has clearly not been explored in any depth. I urge the Minister to consider that as a proactive and collaborative measure that could serve the interests of driving a more efficient use of public resources while maintaining a critical level of service provision to the communities that need it most.

The justification based on geographic proximity is utterly untrue. Not only do the new locations lie outside the 2.5-mile radius that was supposed to be used; the walking and travel times are much longer and more arduous than a cursory look at Google Maps might suggest.

Glasgow’s situation is unique. It has a long-term structural unemployment problem, particularly in Glasgow North East and in the constituencies of other Glasgow Members present today. We need much more focused and intensive support, so it is critical to maintain the current footprint of jobcentres in Glasgow. It might be justifiable to argue that we have a greater density of them than other cities, but that is for a very good reason indeed: Glasgow has historically had a problem with unemployment, so it is critical we maintain our jobcentres.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. I hope the Minister will take our points on board and offer a meaningful and practical solution, so that we can maintain a great public service in Glasgow and ensure that we share the same objective of reducing and minimising unemployment in Glasgow. Let us do something productive to achieve that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. It is also a pleasure to see my old friend from the Strathclyde fire board, the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant). I can confirm that he is a bit of a wind-up merchant, but his comments failed to address the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) started with. The issue is the structural poverty and historic unemployment and deprivation that Glasgow and the west of Scotland still see as a result of the Tory legacy from the ’80s and beyond. This Tory Government seem set on compounding that poverty and misery and making it worse. They are not looking at the communities that the cuts affect; they are looking only at lines on a map or on Google Maps. They are not looking at the Scottish index of multiple deprivation, as my hon. Friend mentioned. If that index was placed over the map, they would see that the cuts are falling on the poorest communities and those who need support the most. They deserve support the most, because they are the furthest away from the labour market.

I do not know whether the Minister has since taken it down, but when he had us over to his office after the cuts were announced, he had an enormous poster on his wall, right behind where he sat. It was a kind of heat map of the joblessness figures for the whole country, and Glasgow was a great big red beacon on that map. That is exactly where the cuts are falling and where support is needed the most.

My hon. Friends have mentioned the issues with the digital divide. They talked about how difficult it is for people, such as the character in “I, Daniel Blake”, who are pencil by default rather than digital by default. That is true of people in the east end of Glasgow and many of the poorer communities in Scotland. Citizens Advice Scotland did a report a few years ago called “Offline and left behind”, which pointed out that the majority of CAB clients it sees would struggle to apply for benefits and jobs online. That will continue to be the case, because many of them are older workers and further away from the job market. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) mentioned the 1950s women affected by the state pension changes. The Government have made great play of trumpeting that there will be support for those women. Where will that support be if the infrastructure they rely on is taken away from their communities?

I have mentioned before in the Chamber that I met a women in my constituency outside Bridgeton jobcentre, which is due to close. She was in bits. She was a WASPI woman who was being forced back to work. She was continually receiving letters calling her into Bridgeton jobcentre. Because it was just down the street from her house, she was able to get her baffies on to get there, but she was scared going in. She was terrified. She was crying going in and coming back out. These are the kind of women who need to be able to access support nearby. Getting up, getting fully dressed, getting on a bus and travelling to the other end of the city would be too much for her. She would fall out of the system and get no support at all. That is not acceptable, and it is not the kind of society we want.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) asked, who will pick up the slack? Who will take up the burden when the jobcentre has gone away? It will be services such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health and the Glasgow Association for Mental Health, which provide so much support to people with mental health issues that are preventing them from taking a job, caused by trauma they have experienced or issues they have had in their lives. Those issues are multiple and complex, and we ignore them at our peril.

The Government are content to let the voluntary sector, food banks and charities pick up where the state has left off and rolled back. The Tory Government are obsessed with dismantling the social security infrastructure of our nation. The things that were put in place to help and support people when they need it most are all being unravelled. That speaks to the issue with the HMRC offices and the DWP back offices. In a lot of cases, they were placed so as to facilitate economic growth in areas that had issues. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) illustrated that perfectly by talking about the impact on the wider community of the 250 jobs and £4,000 a week. I would not be surprised if the figure were higher. It is a small sample—a snapshot in time—of the people who go there to work and use the local sandwich shop or the local paper shop. They will buy things in the high street on their way to and from the office. That is true of every single jobcentre that the Government propose to close. Closures will have an impact on the local economy. Empty buildings will be sitting in communities going unused and becoming derelict.

[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Lady will know that many communities in Glasgow have seen regeneration of their high streets. In particular, there are many great regeneration initiatives in Glasgow that aim to find new and innovative uses for high streets. Surely a progressive measure would be for the DWP to work in partnership with regeneration agencies in Glasgow to look at options such as collocation that would drive vibrancy back into high streets, drive economic activity, drive better job opportunities into communities and create a virtuous cycle of economic growth in Glasgow and around the UK. That is surely what the DWP should be looking at, rather than having a silo mentality of cutting overheads at the expense of everything else. It should be looking at how it can crowd in growth and opportunities through other more entrepreneurial activity, such as collocation.

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. Clyde Gateway, which works in my constituency and across the boundary into Lanarkshire, is a prime example of that. It was not consulted. It has been the driver for economic regeneration in the east end of Glasgow. It has got people into work. It has looked at the people who are furthest away from the job market and got them into apprenticeships and real paying jobs against all the odds of ill health and deprivation, but it was not consulted or involved in the process. It was not asked about collocation. It would bite the Government’s hand off if they wanted to move HMRC offices from the city centre out to the east end of Glasgow, because it knows the impact that would have on positive regeneration. It would bring in jobs and benefit to the wider economy. It knows that, and it has tried to attract organisations such as Police Scotland, which has come into the area. The area is starting to come up, because it is getting those extra, good-value jobs, and people are moving into the area to build their lives rather than just coming in and out for work. That is hugely important.

The Government would save money with collocation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) pointed out, it is much cheaper to have offices in Livingston than in the centre of Edinburgh and much cheaper to have jobs in Dalmarnock or Shawfield than in the city centre of Glasgow. The Government are wedded to the idea of shiny big offices in the city centre. If it is not important where the jobs are done, why should they be done in the most expensive office space that can be found? Why can they not be in local communities, giving benefit to the wider area? As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South said, that is part of the Government’s cack-handed approach to the issue.

The Government have not looked at the data. We have all asked written parliamentary questions, and they cannot show us the data that evidences the decisions. It is not there. They do not know how many claimants of particular types go and use the jobcentres in question. With the transition to universal credit, it is likely that those jobcentres might be needed more rather than less, because people will need to go in and out about the work-related aspects of universal credit, when they are asked to do more work or earn more. The Government do not seem to be thinking about that at all.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, we do not know any detail on outreach. I ask the Government to be careful about how it is done, because there is a huge stigma for some people in accessing jobcentre services. If they are going in and out of the building they can just about cope, but if the services start to be in the community centre, their pals might know they are going in. An officer might sanction someone right there in the middle of the canteen. Such things are really upsetting, and the Government need to think about how they are done, not only for the safety, data protection and dignity of the people using that service, but for the safety of staff. The number of attacks on jobcentre staff has gone up as people get increasingly upset and frustrated with the process. The Government have a duty to those staff to ensure that they are safe, wherever the service is.

There is a security guard on the front door of each jobcentre in Glasgow. If I walk in, someone will come up and challenge me and say, “Who are you? Why are you here?” Within seconds of me walking in the door in Bridgeton, they were saying that. There is a reason for that, and the Government need to think about the safety of staff when they proceed. They need to be careful to do it in a sensitive and effective way. I suppose the Government would know that if they had visited any of the jobcentres in Glasgow or the wider area. I imagine a Government entourage would roll into the building and the jobcentre staff would know they were coming, unlike when I just pitch up on the doorstep, but the Government should consider trying that. They should take up the offer of my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) to visit the jobcentres in Inverclyde, or any jobcentre at all. They could understand the geography and see what it is like for clients to go from one place to another on two buses. Rather than just sitting in an office using Google Maps, they should do the journey themselves.

We have invited the Minister before to come on journeys with us around Glasgow. As part of its campaign, the Evening Times in Glasgow did case studies and went out on journeys to and from all the different jobcentres. It has done great campaigning work on the issue, and it knows the city well—certainly a good deal better than Ministers.

[Mr Sweeney]

There are a couple of relevant points about the need to have a security guard on the door, which reflects a number of problems with the current provision. There is the protection and morale of staff, but there is also the morale and self-esteem of the people who use the service. It is a measure of how the service conducts itself and how the interface with the service feels. People who already have anxiety issues, low self-esteem and problems with engaging are being introduced to this kind of Kafkaesque nightmare, where they feel intimidated and are effectively being negatively influenced to dissociate themselves from using the service.

[Alison Thewliss]

I agree that it seems to be part of a wider plan to stop people using the services in the first place and to get people away from going there and seeking support.

I cannot speak for the rest of the country, but I will speak for Glasgow. What is good about jobcentres in Glasgow is that Bridgeton, Parkhead and Easterhouse all have citizens advice bureaux round the corner, very close to people. If someone finds themselves sanctioned or is stressed or worried, or needs extra support, that support is literally around the corner. They can cross the road to get there, and that help and support will be there. I know from speaking to staff at citizens advice centres in Glasgow that that happens regularly; they are there to provide that service. At Shettleston, which will replace Bridgeton, Parkhead and Easterhouse, there is no citizens advice bureau across the road. I wonder why that is.

In Possil, as was mentioned, there are other services as well. In Langside, there is a college across the road, which is exactly where we would want something that can encourage people to up their qualifications and seek new opportunities.

There are opportunities for collocation that we know the Government have not even explored or looked at. I understand that they offered something to the Scottish Government with no options. Rather than engaging properly and thoroughly, they said, “This is what we are thinking of doing—and we are doing it.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West said, they did that rather than looking at the whole estate and what is the best type of service for people—what works and actually improves things. In all the discussion, there has been nothing about which jobcentres are effective and which are not. Where do things work well for people and where do they not, and how can we improve that? It is just all about cuts, not about people.