Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340 - 359)
TUESDAY 7 APRIL 1998
BARONESS HOLLIS
OF HEIGHAM,
MS URSULA
BRENNAN and MS
CLAIRE EDWARDS
Mr Goggins
340. In my mind I was congratulating Lady Hollis for
the way she had switched the focus of this project away from fraud
and the answer that was given before but I am afraid that answer
has switched the focus right back on fraud. Let me just ask from
the note that you have provided very helpfully why it is that
you would want to spend £24 million strengthening the detection
of fraud when the Department, ministers, officials, all tell us
that fraud is minimal, as is evident by the BIP project?
(Ms Brennan) Sorry, it is not spending that, that
was a saving. Those figures there are expected savings from strengthening
fraud detection.
341. It says "... to strengthen".
(Ms Brennan) Yes, I realise that, that was typed
up very quickly this afternoon. It should say "from strengthening".[2]
Chairman
342. Hold the bus, the Chairman is confused.
(Ms Brennan) We are investing money in investigating
fraud. We said benefit review shows there is fraud in DLA, if
we do the BIP therefore we can expect to find cases of fraud.
If we find cases of fraud we need to refer them to fraud investigation
officers. Our investment of £11.5 million included—it
does not say that here—£1.5 million in each of the
three years in strengthening our fraud investigation activity.
That was expected to yield £7 million, £10 million,
£7 million of savings specifically from the fraud investigation.
Mr Goggins
343. Can I approach this in a slightly different way.
You are telling the Committee that the savings assumptions were
revised down to £5 million from £27 million.
(Ms Brennan) In the first year.
344. In the first year, yes. I think your answer before
was that this was because of time delays.
(Ms Brennan) Yes.
345. That had nothing to do with the fact that the original
DSS review estimated 4.2 per cent fraud at the higher levels and
confirmed fraud and that had not been borne out at all in the
practice of BIP so that equation had no bearing at all on that
revision down of the figure down to five million?
(Ms Brennan) The £5 million, no, because
the fraud would have been part of that £7 million, £10
million, £7 million. That figure of £7 million, £10
million, £7 million savings will certainly be expected to
be adjusted downwards because we have found cases to investigate
but we have not found any confirmed fraud. So at the moment there
would not be any savings under that heading.
346. I am genuinely very encouraged by the positive switch
of direction that is going on but I find it very hard to believe
that a review suggested levels of fraud of 12.2 per cent must
have been built into the savings assumptions. Those savings assumptions
have now been revised down, yet fraud has not played any part?
(Ms Brennan) No, I am sorry, I was trying to say
there are two separate components to the savings line: a questionnaires
and reviews component and a fraud investigation component. The
questionnaires and reviews component has come down from £20
million to £5 million. The fraud investigation component—£7
million, £10 million, £7 million—we have not yet
revised but certainly in the first year we have not found any
so that £7 million will become nought. That is what has happened.
If we do not find any fraud to investigate then we will not make
any savings out of it and that line of £7 million, £10
million, £7 million, if we continue not to find any fraud
will simply disappear. The general run of savings, the £5
million, £40 million, £40 million, has actually yielded
slightly higher savings than we originally anticipated because
our findings have shown that the amount that we are saving from
cases is bigger than we had expected.
Mr Pond: I think you have answered the question. I
was puzzled how out of 50 cases referred to the fraud unit for
further investigation you were going to generate these enormous
savings. It must mean that the amount of benefit being received
by the individuals is much higher than any Member of the Committee
assumed even if all of those were found to be fraudulent cases.
Thank you for that clarification.
Chairman: I just wonder if in this day and age of freedom
of information, these are complicated matters and your note is
helpful but could we see some of the original documentation, some
of the original papers that analyse these?[3]
Mr Wicks
347. Or the back of the envelope.
(Ms Brennan) Yes. There is no reason why the analysis
that simply says multiples of cases——
Chairman: I think it would help us when we got into
the fine print of the report if that is possible.
Ms Stuart
348. Let us look at the nuts and bolts of this assessment.
We had a project manager last week and to our considerable surprise
found that unlike a project manager in industry who takes some
responsibility for running things and if things start to go wrong
I would expect to get quite involved, we were told neither he
nor any other members had ever been on a home visit despite the
fact that home visits is one of the areas which caused considerable
controversy. Also I felt that the amount of training which was
given was sufficient training to train someone to fill in paper
work correctly but I felt was not an indication that there was
sufficient training to be responsive to the needs of the people
they were going to interview. Could you give me some indication
of how you feel how adequate the training and how adequate the
project management is given the history, which is not uncontroversial,
of this project up to date?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) I think the point
about training is entirely well taken and I entirely agree with
the push of your question. This was one of the major changes that
we introduced at that first meeting on 10 June when I thought
we got BIP back on track, so to speak, and we all shared a degree
of ownership of it. As I say, at that point, DIG kindly agreed
to come in. Clearly the adjudication officers are trained in terms
of making decisions on the basis of paper information, visiting
officers are trained in visiting techniques. What was clear from
that meeting on 10 June was that there was not sufficient disability
awareness and as a result of DIG's offer of help we had some very
helpful training sessions which have been very well received.
What has also become clear, however, from the meeting of 23 March
is we need to increase that learning. The DLAAB Board already
does some training of AdjOs in terms of medical information. We
need to work perhaps with them but also with specific trainers
so that the adjudication officers know when they need to call
for additional information, make sure it is there and appropriate
and relevant. Also we need to make sure that visiting officers
continue to be trained and to recognise training is not something
you do as a batch at the beginning and then forget about it, it
is something you need to continually return to, to continually
share experiences and sensitise people to situations as they develop.
I think this is a point that I for one have well taken from the
disability organisations and we are determined to strengthen training
and we have those plans in progress. Indeed at our last meeting
disability organisations made it clear that they wanted that training
to go out to tender so that not just DIG but other organisations
could bid for that training activity. Insofar as that was a statement
of ownership, I am delighted to say that was an excellent way
forward.
349. Again relating to home visits you said earlier that
self- assessment was very significant and that there could be
changes in circumstances and part of the need for the review is
those changes in circumstances. It came to me as a considerable
surprise to learn last week that an individual person who receives
the benefit is not as a matter of practice given a copy of the
assessment of their current state. How can we expect people to
report changes if they are not aware of what is reported in the
first stage which may be going back years?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) I entirely agree
and again that was something we were discussing with the organisations
on 23 March. One possible way—I think this was trailed at
the last meeting by the project manager—is to simply ensure
when you send out a postal questionnaire that you send out two
copies and make it clear on the paper that the disabled person
would be well advised to keep a copy for themselves; and on visits
spend the last ten minutes transcribing a completed form to leave
a duplicate behind. They are complicated forms. Having filled
in one in my own family it took me about an hour and a half with
the help of a Disability handbook and half a bottle of Tippex.
Chairman
350. Half a bottle of gin!
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) That came later!
The sort of thing we are thinking about is seeing if we can ensure
that a duplicate copy is left with the person concerned and it
may be, for example, that when we send out queries we could every
couple of years say, "Is it the case that your circumstances
have remained unchanged? Will you please check against your original
form and let us know whether your condition has changed for better
or for worse", and to follow that up with a further visit
or discussion. I am not saying that is what we propose to do because
obviously what we will do will be after discussions with the disability
organisations, but that is the sort of way our thinking is starting
to go.
Mrs Stuart: I am delighted to hear it.
Mr Roy
351. First of all, on the concessions that have been
announced on the 9 February and 23 March could you expand why
the decision for those concessions was made and what exactly the
Government hopes to achieve?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) Thank you. Looking
back on the problem of gateways, it is clear that the difficulty
is with the adequacy of evidence in the first place. We are talking
about self assessment and it was clear that where mistakes were
made was where the AdjO had insufficient or inadequate evidence
in front of them. Some of the cases portrayed in the Mail
are such cases, where disabled people had understated their needs
and by the time the carer got round to correcting the statement
the case had been perfectly properly taken up by one of the newspapers.
What we were seeking to ensure from the 9 February was that no
decision is made to reduce or remove a benefit rate in DLA without
additional evidence over and beyond the self-reporting. That evidence
may come from a carer, family friends, the GP or the consultant,
so that we try to get the decision at the first stage correct
and thus reduce the need for subsequent reviews and appeals. That
was the first step. In addition to that following our discussions
on the 23 March it is clear we need to continue to simplify the
literature that goes out. For example, one of the most difficult
areas is the situation of the terminally ill; we already have
an agreement that one of the exempt groups is the terminally ill.
However, people can become terminally ill after they have filled
in their original DLA form from a different condition. How sensitively
do we ensure they are not troubled further without making them
aware of information that they may not have had revealed to them
by their GP? We need the organisations' help on how we do this.
I wish to hear from them. We really do need their expertise in
this field. We also looked at information we are now beginning
to get through from the figures as a result of the BIP questionnaires
and visits to see how many awards needed no change, in other words,
their condition is relatively constant. It is clear that those
over 65 do not usually experience a change in their condition,
and therefore it is absurd to waste our administrative time and
effort and to worry them unnecessarily to go and visit them. We
are exempting them. It may be as we study our database that we
can exempt other groups in similar ways. There is no sense from
an administrative point of view, let alone generating the additional
concern and worry, in hassling people who do not need to be hassled
because the probability of their award needing to be reviewed
or changed is very unlikely. In addition to that we are increasing
training, as I mentioned. We are also going to be trying to reduce
the review time so at present it runs for 11 weeks and we hope
to get that down to four to five weeks. I hope with the Chairmen
of the Disability Consortium, Ian Bruce and Richard Wood, to visit
the new President of the Tribunals to see whether we can speed
up the tribunal time. We are seeing whether we can have more sensitive
handling at interviews. For example, if somebody wants the same
sex interviewer to see if we can offer that. We are trying to
ensure there is adequate evidence when we make the decision. We
are seeking to simplify the literature and make that more sensitive.
We are seeking to connect the review time with decisions by Motability
so that where people are at risk of losing their vehicle, they
would at least be able to hold on to it until the review had been
completed if not until the appeal stage. Any further suggestions
that the disabled organisations may have on how we can best "routinise"
the activities of BIP, we will certainly consider very positively.
352. Can I also ask you regarding the 3,500 people who
actually lost their claim before February. I understand 1,000
of those people put in for a review before February. What is going
to happen? Are you going to look retrospectively? When can we
expect an announcement on that?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) What we have asked
officials to do is to see whether we can re-visit pre-9 February
claims and apply the same standards of evidence gathering that
we are applying to post-9 February claims.
353. Is that all people who have put in for a review?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) No, it is on precisely
your point. Somebody who has gone for review is going through
the system in the usual way. What we are concerned about is people
who have not gone for review possibly because they feel themselves
defeated or exhausted or very fragile and frail. Where people
have not gone for review and where we did not at the time have
additional evidence, these are cases which we think are the most
vulnerable. I understand that something like 1,200 of those we
know we can identify. We know that we could in practical terms
re-visit them. What we are not yet clear is the legal authority
to do so because of course the net result would be making an award
beyond the period of back-dating, so we have to look at the legal
constraints within which we operate, but we will try and do it
if we can. There may be hurdles that we have to address and face
on this. I share your worry that we have got to ensure that the
people at the beginning of this project have applied to them the
same standards of evidence gathering as apply to those after.
354. We will hear an announcement within weeks, within
months?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) I do not know. We
will have to look at this and see whether we can do it. If we
can we will obviously come back with a statement to that effect.
We are in the hands at the moment of the lawyers, as I understand
it.
Chairman: I am anxious to move on to the current operation
of DLA. Patricia Hewitt has some questions in that area.
Ms Hewitt
355. My impression from constituents as well as from
the evidence is that there are three main areas of concern with
DLA. One is the claiming process, specifically self-assessment.
The second one is the quality of decision-making by the lay adjudication
officers. And the third one is the conditions of entitlement themselves
which you were saying earlier are somewhat complicated. What do
you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each of those three
aspects? Do you have specific proposals at this stage to overcome
any weaknesses that you see?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) I do think that the
issue behind those three questions is that disabled people do
not always understand what DLA is for. In a very crude and simple
way they often believe it is a compensation for their disability.
"If I have this level of disability, I ought to have this
level of money". Whereas what DLA is about is not actually
a compensation for their disability, it is not even a straight
medical read across from their disability to their money, it is
about a meeting of the costs for which care and mobility serves
as a proxy to enable them to manage their disability. It may be
that somebody who is blind who is getting, say, a mobility element
may choose to spend that money on an expensive piece of IT equipment
to enable them to do a job of work or to pay for the interest
on the mortgage for an extension to their home and thus be able
to live on the ground floor. In that sense DLA is a proxy for
enabling disabled people to cope with the cost of their disability.
Given that, it is not surprising that two people with the same
disability nominally may have very different care needs and may
therefore have very different DLA awards. That is intrinsic to
the nature of the award but it gives rise to quite a lot of concern
and confusion. In terms of claiming, the whole point of DLA was
that the person who therefore knows best what the costs of managing
a disability are and the problems associated with it is the disabled
person themselves. What DLA does is put the disabled person at
the centre of that benefit system and not a dependent on it. That
is why there is not simply an exclusively medical assessment.
We start with the diary, with the self reporting, but what has
become clear over the last year, to me at any rate, is that though
that self-assessment is necessary it is not sufficient. We need
additional evidence, it may be medical evidence, in most cases
probably it will be medical evidence, it may be additional evidence
from carers but we need that additional evidence. Though the diary
of the assessment is the building block we need additional information
as well. If we can get that information in, in addition to self-assessment,
and if we can improve the quality of training, then we should
together get a much higher percentage of decisions correctly made
at the time the award is given. That is our policy intent. Clearly
there will always be decisions that are overturned at appeal but
if I could just flag that up. That may be because the decision
was wrong in the first place. However, it is quite possible that
the adjudication officer can make the right decision, correct
decision, yet that decision be overturned by the appeals tribunal
and the appeals tribunal can also be correct because in that nine
months that condition has deteriorated or improved. These were
all areas for me to look at, as I say, the training, the collection
of evidence. We have of course simplified the form, the previous
form to last October was 33 pages it is now down to 21. We have
had the help of the organisations, it is much simpler. These are
all practical measures in terms of the Disability Living Allowance
but the wider issue about what the gateways to that benefit should
be, whether we have the exact balance right between the individual
tiers, the gateways on to those tiers, whether the main meals
test, for example, is the right passport on to the lower rate
of the care component, these are precisely the sorts of questions
that we are going to be exploring with the organisations. We have
set up a Disability Benefits Forum with the core organisations,
together with the attendance of Professor Grahame of DLAAB and
academics. We are having a series of meetings, perhaps every three
to four weeks, over the next year, ad infinitum perhaps, in which
we will explore these concerns and seek to come up with recommendations
to ensure that DLA, and incidentally Incapacity Benefit, which
is a parallel earnings replacement benefit, are on a more secure
footing.
356. You mentioned that in many cases medical evidence
or medical examination will be the appropriate corroborative evidence,
now of course the Benefits Agency medical services has just been
contracted out to Sema for, I gather, a period of five years.
If you decided, for instance, to accept the proposal of the Advisory
Board, which has suggested a much more multidisciplinary approach
to the assessment, would that policy change be constrained by
the nature of the contract?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) I do not see why
because I think the approach being made by DLAAB and some of the
other organisations is that visiting officers and so on need to
have that approach and information. We will still continue to
need medical information but not exclusively, if I can put it
this way, qualified medical information. I do not know whether
either Ursula or Claire would like to add more about the implications
of contracting out?
(Ms Brennan) Certainly it is intended not to constrain
what we do. Any change in the way that you adjudicate a benefit,
whether you do it in house or through a contract, if it entails
a wholesale change in the type of staff you use has a cost and
that will be true whether it is contracted in or contracted out.
Our contract with Sema enables us to be quite flexible about the
way we obtain evidence so we do not see that as a constraint.
It is not something one could move to en masse with any huge speed,
it is the sort of thing you would want to try out, pilot, prototype,
to see how it works. We believe the contract with Sema enables
us to do that flexibly without constraining our options.
Chairman: I want Chris Pond to deal with life awards
but a brief supplementary on this area from Edward Leigh.
Mr Leigh
357. I want to take up what Lady Hollis said in her answer
to not the last question from my colleague but the one before.
She made quite clear that DLA is linked to people's disability
not to their financial resources. Because somebody is relatively
well off it does not mean they do not have extra burdens by being
disabled. On that answer, can she therefore confirm that there
is no truth in the report in today's Daily Telegraph, 7
April 1998, I quote: "Income levels of the disabled are to
be surveyed for the first time to establish how many are relatively
well off—and arguably not in need of some state benefits"?
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) I think the report
in the Daily Telegraph went beyond my understanding of
what the Minister said. We have that information already and we
are very happy to give it to the Committee. We know already what
the income by quintile is of disabled people both before and after
they have received DLA. I think the intention was to say that
we will put that information into the public domain as part of
the useful debate. If behind that you are asking me a question
about what is the future of DLA in terms of means testing, for
example, the Green Paper has made it very clear indeed that DLA
will remain a universal benefit, it will not be means tested.
Obviously taxation is a separate matter for the Chancellor. We
have no plans to tax it but clearly nobody can know the plans
of the future Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Chairman
358. Do I understand that you are offering to let us
have that information?
(Ms Brennan) That is another note.
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) We have this information
here.
359. We are doing well this afternoon, two extra notes.
(Baroness Hollis of Heigham) May we give it to
you?[4]
Chairman: That is very kind, thank you very much. Chris
Pond on life awards.
2 See Ev. p. 115 for the corrected version. Back
3 Ev. p.
116-7. Back
4 Ev. p.
115-6. Back
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