Universal Support: East Suffolk

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered universal support in East Suffolk.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I welcome the Minister. The Government set up the universal support system to assist universal credit claimants in making claims and managing the payments they receive. The full roll-out of universal credit in Lowestoft, in my constituency, started in May 2016. Shortly afterwards, under the leadership of Waveney District Council, the East Suffolk universal credit support partnership was created to provide universal support in east Suffolk, in the area covered by Waveney District Council and Suffolk Coastal District Council, which are due to merge next year.

From 1 April 2019, the service in its current form will be discontinued as a result of the Government’s decision to award a national contract for the delivery of universal support to Citizens Advice, which was announced on 1 October. I have no criticism of Citizens Advice and the great work it does locally and nationally, but I am concerned as to why the change has been made and whether it is in the best interests of universal credit claimants in east Suffolk.

From the start, the roll-out of universal credit in Lowestoft has not been straightforward. Many people, often the most vulnerable in society, have been put under enormous pressure and have faced major difficulties in getting by day to day. Local Department for Work and Pensions staff have risen to the major challenge and have acquired new skills to work with people in a completely different way than they did in the past.

The roll-out is a massive task, which local DWP staff cannot deliver on their own. The East Suffolk universal credit support partnership has provided vital support to universal credit customers. The partnership has brought together various organisations, including Citizens Advice, jobcentre managers, the Anglia Revenues Partnership, the local housing department and housing associations, to support universal credit customers and local communities.

At the outset, the partnership identified barriers that needed to be removed and challenges that needed to be addressed. The barriers included the difficulties associated with managing a single monthly payment, the challenges that many claimants face in accessing a digital system, and meeting the requirements of households with complex needs. The challenges that needed to be addressed were an increase in rent arrears, private landlords consequently not accepting universal credit tenants, and managing a potential increase in homelessness.

As well as more access points, the partnership has provided personal budgeting, assisted digital support and special disability advice. With a large amount of private rented sector housing in Lowestoft, proactive work with private landlords has been vital in addressing their concerns about universal credit. There have been quarterly meetings, workshops and regular phone and email contact.

The general feedback is that the partnership has been successful in helping people with the transition from legacy benefits to universal credit. Earlier this year, the partnership won silver at the public sector transformation awards in London. The partnership has also been proactive in considering how the system could be improved. It has just funded a behavioural insight project to look at how nudge techniques could be used to increase the take-up of personal budgeting support ahead of managed migration and full service roll-out in the rest of the Suffolk Coastal area. Such an innovation would not have happened without local authority support.

Despite all that good work, on 1 October, Waveney District Council received a letter from the DWP advising it that, as from 1 April, it would no longer deliver universal support, and that Citizens Advice would do so from that date. It is disappointing that the council received that letter on the same day as the public announcement by the DWP regarding the new partnership with Citizens Advice and that there was no prior notification. Moreover, six months’ notice gives the council very little time to manage and prepare for the new arrangements. It will have to bring to an end its partnership agreements with third parties at its own cost, for which it has not been able to budget.

The ending of the partnership will have a significant impact across east Suffolk. Partnership agreements with providers of assisted digital support, including specialist disability advice services and social landlords, will need to be ended, as their involvement can no longer be funded by the council. Benefit liaison officers will no longer be able to arrange and chair universal support partnership meetings or operational assisted digital support and personal budgeting support meetings. The innovation project to boost personal budgeting support will not take place.

Assisted digital support, which has been offered at all local authority customer service access points from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday, will cease. That will mean that the number of access points across the whole east Suffolk area will reduce significantly. The council’s digital resource map, which is often used by local DWP work coaches and universal credit customers, will no longer be available. The council will no longer be able to provide its staff’s energy and enthusiasm, which I have very much seen for myself, to ensure that the roll-out of universal credit goes as smoothly as possible.

Citizens Advice is an important partner in the current arrangements, but there is a concern as to whether its local network has sufficient capacity and infrastructure to be as effective as the service that has been provided until now. Two other concerns have been raised with me. First, why has the DWP not yet published its review of universal support, which presumably provides the explanation for ending the current arrangements and for whether the correct procedures have been followed? Secondly, why was there no consultation with those currently delivering the service? Should there have been a public procurement process and a competitive tender before the award to Citizens Advice?

I have spoken to Citizens Advice, locally and nationally, and it is committed to providing as high a quality service as possible from next April, although it has a lot of work to do to have the service up and running by then. It will try to build on the good practice that has been put in place locally in east Suffolk, but restrictions on resources, capacity and the number of outlets will prevent it from replicating many of the innovative initiatives that the partnership has put in place.

Further constraints are that the national contract is for only one year and that Suffolk County Council is proposing to cut its core funding to Citizens Advice across the county. Bearing in mind that the contract is for 12 months, and taking account of the managed migration planned from November 2020, the concern is that local authorities’ missing link with customers will increase homelessness and rent arrears in those council areas where the housing stock has been retained—that is, in the Waveney part of east Suffolk. When the Government made the decision, did they have regard to the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and the added responsibilities it places on local authorities?

East Suffolk Council is committed to providing as seamless a transition as possible, so that universal credit customers are not adversely affected. That said, as I have already mentioned, the service that is currently on offer will have to be reduced from 1 April. In future, the council will, in effect, act only as a signpost.

The draft model of universal support that Citizens Advice has developed looks very thorough. It goes above the assisted digital support and the personal budgeting support that is currently offered and that is central to the current package. There is some upset in the council that it has been criticised for not providing such a service, although it points out that it was never asked to do so.

The Citizens Advice offer includes a full advice and support service, as well as triage, call centres, face-to-face support, identity verification preparation for customers, and webchats. That is welcome, but as I have already mentioned the concern as to how viable this service will be, given the level of funding provided to Citizens Advice.

Nationally, the feedback I am receiving is that the quality of universal support across the country as a whole until now has been variable. The roll-out of universal credit has presented many challenges to everyone involved, which is certainly the case in Lowestoft. However, the one ray of light in Lowestoft, and one source of hope, was that local government and local charities had put in place a system of universal support that was an exemplar that could be replicated elsewhere, in line with the “test and learn” approach that the DWP recommends.

The fact that this system is being dismantled in a seemingly hasty way, and with no prior notice, is very disappointing. Local support requirements are best decided locally and not through a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach. I ask the Minister to take on board the concerns that I have outlined, which reflect local exasperation and disappointment. In future, the Government should work more closely and collegiately with those who have the task of rolling out universal credit in local areas—at the coalface—right across the country. They have a responsibility and a duty to universal credit customers to do that.