Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200 - 219)
WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL 1998
MR JOHN
LUTTON, MS
URSULA BRENNAN
and MR BILL
FARRELL
Mrs Stuart
200. I am deeply disturbed by the confusion that is coming
across to me. Alistair Burt says, "We will be involving and
discussing". It is not semantics. You perceive "involving
and discussing" as "talk to", whereas I think disability
groups perceive it as a two way process. You talk about incorrectness
which again is a rather universal term which can relate to the
quality of the decision making, a change in circumstances and
fraud; yet, at the same time, you proceed on the assumption that
it is a spend to save project which will save you money. This
process has a diversity of objectives which appear to me like
a recipe for disaster. What I would like to have spelled out very
clearly is, when you talk about incorrectness, what precisely
do you mean by that? Is it incorrectness in the way the Department
is administering things, which is fine as it is your problem and
it is an administrative problem? Or is it incorrectness in the
process by which awards are made? If someone wrote to me, I would
come to the assessment and present my best self because I do not
want to be a victim. Is it a problem with the quality of the decision
making when you assess disability? In which case, you must not
just talk to but seriously engage in consultation with the various
interest groups because, by your very admission, you seem to have
been unaware of the strength of feeling out there. Some clarity
is absolutely essential now.
(Ms Brennan) I think you have raised several issues
there. Perhaps I can tease them out separately. First of all,
the issue about savings. The BIP was launched by the previous
government under the security and control programme which was
a spend to save initiative. That was where the funding for the
programme came from. It is a fact that our benefit review showed
that most of the incorrectness was people being overpaid rather
than underpaid. Therefore, doing this kind of checking of the
correctness was likely to result in more cases being found to
be overpaid, and therefore savings to be made, than underpayment.
I do not think anybody has ever been coy about that. That was
clearly how this project was set up and that was how it was funded.
That was the basis on which we talked about the savings. What
do we mean by incorrectness? Incorrectness can arise for a whole
variety of reasons. Incorrectness can arise at the initial award;
we can make an incorrect award. It can arise after the award,
either because a person's circumstances change and they are no
longer entitled because their disability itself changes or because
their home circumstances change—and that can be knowingly,
in which case it is fraud, the person knows that they should have
told us that something has changed—or it can be something
where they did not appreciate that the changes that have happened
were something that they should report back to us. One of the
features of DLA is that distinction between fraud and a misunderstanding
about what people should tell us is much more prevalent, we suspect,
than it is in other benefits. It is easier in some other benefits
to say, "If you did not tell us about this, you really should
have known and therefore we suspect that you deliberately kept
it from us"; whereas, in relation to DLA, people may not
tell us about an improvement in their condition because it may
not be very significant to them and they may not appreciate that
it actually affects their benefit entitlement. The BIP was about
going out to people and saying, "Tell us about your circumstances"
and we then match that against the conditions of entitlement.
Then, if there is a difference, that might be for a whole range
of reasons. It might be because you have been fraudulent. In most
cases, it is likely to be because something has happened that
you failed to tell us about, probably because you did not appreciate
that it was necessary for you to tell us about it. Either way,
that results in the benefit payment being incorrect and that is
what the BIP was designed to tackle.
201. Did you ever and stop and think from the other person's
point of view who gets this letter through the post? They are
still the all knowing, omnipotent Department and you are the disabled
person who did not tell us or failed to tell us. Maybe there is
something about the way you were asking the questions. Maybe there
is some feedback from the groups which would have helped in this
process to correct the incorrectness. I get very little sense
that there was an appreciation that there may also have been something
wrong in the way you talked to people.
(Ms Brennan) Do you mean in the first instance
or in relation to the BIP?
202. In relation to the BIP. The fear was, "This
is a project to cut my benefits". People are terrified. What
reaction did you expect?
(Ms Brennan) We clearly did underestimate the
extent to which that would be controversial when designing this
project.
Mr Gibb
203. Can I just get back to the chronology again? Why
did you wait until 6 May before sending out the questionnaires?
(Ms Brennan) Because of the election.
204. I thought you said this was a routine sending out
of questionnaires. Why was there a need to wait?
(Ms Brennan) We had not done it before on DLA.
The concept of issuing questionnaires was common but I think in
practice, as I think the Chairman mentioned, anything that was
on a continuing basis, we took a view that we should not be just
carrying on with that during the election period.
205. A new project on a continuing basis? You said this
was not a new project.
(Ms Brennan) No, sorry. I did not mean to say
that. It certainly was a new project. The concept of issuing these
sorts of questionnaires was common in the benefit system. It is
just that issuing these questionnaires to the DLA claimants was
new.
206. You waited because you wanted to get approval from
the new government?
(Ms Brennan) Yes.
207. Which minister approved sending out these questionnaires?
(Ms Brennan) I think that is a more appropriate
matter for discussion with Baroness Hollis.
208. Did a minister approve sending out these questionnaires?
(Ms Brennan) I would prefer that we discussed
that with Baroness Hollis.
Chairman
209. You said something earlier about evidence from the
safeguarding work that has been done in some other research. Is
it possible for the Committee to have sight of this evidence that
you referred to earlier?
(Ms Brennan) Yes. When I talked about evidence,
I was thinking of the research which was undertaken by Roy Sainsbury
which was an evaluation of DLA.[3]
The safeguarding project was really administrative exercises that
were going on in the Department and I do not know that they were
written up in any particular form. It was a variety of operational
officials looking at how the benefit was organised.
210. I wonder if we could ask you about administration.
This was a spend to save project. How much money was at stake?
How much money did the Department get from the Treasury from the
execution of the Benefit Integrity Project? Ball park figures
will do. The point I am working round to is that the Committee
knows that the Agency's budget has been under a great deal of
pressure from the changed programme. Therefore, it would not be
unreasonable to assume that any money that you could get your
hands on for any purpose that took pressure off the administrative
tasks that you were being asked to perform against a diminishing
administrative budget would be worth having. I would like to know
how many people are actually involved in this project, the Benefit
Integrity Project, and whether that spend to save Treasury submission
was the only way of keeping them secure in their employment. In
addition to that, I am not a naturally suspicious kind of character
but is there any performance element in the contracts? Is it the
National Adjudication Support Checking and Advice Team, the NASCAT
people, who are undertaking this? These are all important questions
which I think flow from the earlier discussion we were having
about the chronology. Why did the Department, in the absence of
ministers as far as I can see, take the steps that it did? There
is just a nasty suspicion in my mind that this process was driven
by the fact that this money had been secured from the Treasury
and the work had to be done in order to justify the extra administrative
cash that it brought in.
(Ms Brennan) This was a spend to save measure.
The Treasury funded the measure as part of the security and control
programme, where there is special, ring-fenced money which goes
to the Benefits Agency and others for security and control programme
activity. To that extent, when incoming ministers looked at the
funding baseline of the Department and took decisions about spending,
it was on the basis that this spend to save measure was in their
baseline, so that was clear with incoming ministers, that the
balance sheet, if you like, that they inherited included these
figures.
211. I want to talk now about DLA as well but just one
final question from me on this. I am more concerned about the
administrative perspective from officials in the Benefits Agency.
I want to try and get some reassurance that this project was not
just kept going for the sake of the money it was bringing in.
You may not have the information at the front of your minds and
I understand that but, if you have not, can we have a note about
how many people are involved in rolling out and continuing the
prosecution of this policy? How much money is it worth, if I can
put it that way, in administrative income and to the Agency's
budget itself? What kind of contracts were these people on?
(Mr Lutton) The thing that was driving this was
the incorrectness in the benefit, not a matter of keeping staff
in a job. The money involved was around £11.5 million for
each of two years from 1998/99 and 1999/2000. Around 400 staff
were involved in total, a number at the unit in Blackpool and
a number in various units around the country.
212. Do you mean if this Benefit Integrity Project had
not been conceived these 400 people would not be at work in the
Benefits Agency today?
(Mr Lutton) In terms of the actual people, the
recruitment for the project was a mix. It was generally taking
experienced staff from existing operations and moving them into
the project.
213. So they would have been otherwise engaged anyway?
(Mr Lutton) There was a mix of new recruits and
surpluses that would have arisen because of efficiencies made
in the general process.
Chairman: Surpluses that would have arisen?
Ms Hewitt
214. Potential redundancies.
(Mr Lutton) Not as far as redundancies.
Chairman
215. How many of the 400 would have been made redundant
if the programme had not been rolled out?
(Mr Lutton) We have not made anyone compulsorily
redundant.
216. I know that because there are 400 jobs involved.
I am asking the question the other way around. If the programme
was not here, how many would be made redundant?
(Mr Lutton) We would be making efficiencies in
the benefits saved that amount to several thousand numbers of
staff.
217. I am not interested in that; I am interested in
this 400. If you cannot do this now, I am quite happy to have
a note. How many of these 400 would have been made redundant if
the Benefit Integrity Project had not been continued?
(Mr Lutton) None of them would have been made
compulsorily redundant. There would have been a question of managing
out surpluses and there are various ways to manage out surpluses.
Some of it can be done by voluntary means; some of it can be done
by redeployment. Some of the 400 were redeployed from other parts
of the operation, in order to maintain consistency and experience
in this project, given the sensitivity of the project, but we
actually employed new members of staff and recruited new people
to backfill behind those people who moved into the project.
Mr Roy
218. If you employ people towards the project and the
project does not happen, how many of those people would not be
employed?
(Mr Lutton) None of those would not have been
employed in terms of the way we have been able to manage out surpluses
up until now, because there is natural wastage; there can be voluntary
early retirements; there can be redeployment from one part of
the operation to another. We have actually managed out several
thousand potential surpluses without making anybody unemployed
or compulsorily redundant.
Ms Hewitt
219. To continue on that point for a moment, if the Benefit
Integrity Project had not gone ahead in May of last year, presumably
there would have been 400 fewer posts within the Agency and £11.5
million less coming in?
(Ms Brennan) I am not sure that one can necessarily
assume there would have been £11.5 million less coming in,
in that the security and control programme has a whole raft of
activities that might have been funded. I guess, if we had not
done the BIP, we might well have put that money into new claims
visits and targeted reviews in income support, so it does not
necessarily follow that this was all or nothing.
3 Evaluation of Disability Living Allowance and
Attendance Allowance DSS Research Report No. 41. Back
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