Examination of witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 14 APRIL 1999
MR GORDON
HEXTALL, MR
ALAN BURNHAM,
and DR E ANNE
BRAIDWOOD
60. Yes.
(Mr Hextall) Dr Braidwood?
(Dr Braidwood) This is a very interesting subject.
One of the things that has not come up yet is the standard of
proof in war pensions which is not a balance of probabilities
and it is not scientific proofit is a reasonable doubt.
If a person claims within seven years of leaving service it is
even more advantageous to the claimant than that, because unless
the Secretary of State can show by evidence beyond reasonable
doubt that service has not played a part causally in the condition
claimed then a certificate and award has to follow. For the majority
of claims of which you are speaking today, these were governed
by Article 5 of the Service Pensions Order where it is for the
claimant to raise by reliable evidence a reasonable doubt that
service is causally related to the condition. I apologise for
this long-winded answer but it is pertinent. As you understand,
the very nature of the terminology "reasonable doubt"
is a little difficult and it is a bit like 15 different people
having 15 different views. Case law has given some guidance as
to what terminology means but nevertheless it is quite nebulous.
What it says basically is that reliable evidence means evidence
that is not merely fanciful. It then goes on to say that raising
a reasonable doubt is, equally, a rather difficult thing to determine.
It is not something that one can easily express and say "it
has got to be a 51 per cent chance". There is nothing of
that about it. It is said in case law that it is for the Secretary
of State to recognise that there would be a time medically when
there was no doubt about the link, there would be a time when
the evidence became such that something might have been due to
service, and then there was a point at which a consensus was reached
on the matter. The point we are looking for to identify the causal
link in terms of war pensions is, before that consensus but, in-between
it and the point that nobody felt that service had anything to
do with it. All I am trying to sayand I apologise for the
circuitous routeis that it is a very low standard of proof.
61. A very low standard of proof for the
claimant?
(Dr Braidwood) For the claimant. Given that service
is almost inevitably going to result in some degree of noise exposure
more often than not entitlement to that label had to be given
in a very large number of cases.
62. What happened in these cases where people
suddenly woke up to the fact in 1992 that they could claim for
deafness that may have resulted from 20 years before? To what
percentage did you award some sort of war pension?
(Dr Braidwood) I do not think we have that absolute
figure because at that point
63. Do you have a rough idea?
(Mr Hextall) If I can get back to you. Can I give
you a note?
Mr Leigh: You can
always write to us. Thank you. That is the end of my question.
Chairman: I want to
come back to some of that in wider policy options if you will
allow me but that was very helpful.
Miss Kirkbride: Dr
Braidwood really raised a very interesting point which crossed
my mind earlier in discussions with my honourable friend here
which is to say bearing in mind what you have just said I wonder
whether or not a case has come up of a potential for war widows
whose husbands have died as a result of lung cancer. Bearing in
mind that all servicemen were issued with cigarettes during the
war as part of their rations, where cases have arisen where a
chap died of lung cancer, does that create an entitlement because
on the basis of what you have just said it strikes me that there
might be a whole area there of people who have an eligibility
for a war pension.
Mr Leigh: Be very
careful how you answer that!
Chairman
64. You are covered by parliamentary rules
but nevertheless I think Edward's advice is probably very sound.
(Dr Braidwood) Could I refer you to statutory
instrument 1994/772.
65. Wonderful answer!
(Dr Braidwood) This is obviously a very real issue.
May I just say, Mr Leigh, quickly finishing off the hearing loss
point, if entitlement was granted to a large percentage of people,
one of the reasons why the then Government introduced a legislative
amendment in 1992/93 was to produce a threshold so that people
who had a low degree of hearing loss and therefore in their eyes,
(looking to target war pension at those who were seriously disabled),
would no longer be entitled, although they had a disability which
we were acknowledging, they introduced legislation to make that
low degree of hearing loss below the compensation threshold. With
respect to your question, Miss Kirkbride, in 1994 a legislative
amendment meant that the definition of "injury"War
pension is paid for "disablement due to injury due to service"
and the definition of injury was amended to exclude injuries which
were causally related to the use of alcohol or tobacco except
under a particular circumstance. This was if a particular individual,
so injured and disabled had an existing war pension for disablement
due to a psychiatric disorder and that was assessed at 50 per
cent or more. The logic behind that was to protect those war pensioners
with a psychiatric disablement due to service which rendered them
unable to exert personal choice. In reaching that amendment I
understand that expert opinion was taken as to the possible effects
of injury of a psychiatric nature likely to lead to 50 per cent
disablement. Earlier than that, if I may quickly say this, from
the 1940s there was a lot of case law on war pensions. It may
be of interest to the Committee that Lord Denning, who has recently
died around his 100 birthday, was asked on one of the many programmes
which related to this what he felt was his biggest contribution
to the English bar. Very interestingly, he said he felt perhaps
his greatest contribution related to war pensions determination
in the 1940s. During that period he served as a nominated judge
of the High Court and one of the things that he established at
that time as a matter of case law was that injury in the personal
sphere say due to consumption of alcohol and tobacco should not
be deemed to be war-related injury. So there has been legislation
in 1994 but the tradition and the underlying policy has always
been not to so award such war pension disablement.
Dr Naysmith
66. We want to shift the discussion now
for a short time anyway. I am sure we will come back to some of
these things once Mr Dismore gets round to asking his real questions
and that is something for you to look forward to. I want to move
on and ask a couple of questions about the War Pensioners Welfare
Service. It is very clear from your business plan which actually
I found to be a very well laid out and useful document and under
the "Our ValuesPutting Service First" section
you talk about the development of this welfare service. We have
had evidence that it is a valued service from war pensioners and
it works closely with ex-service organisations who gave evidence
here. Many of them commented on how highly they value the service
and I suspect they want the development to take place, but some
of them expressed concerns about its future and particularly the
War Widows' Association were anxious to be assured that it would
not be hindered by financial constraints, and one understands
that. They also talked about ways of improving the quality of
this service and wanted to be sure that these were investigated
and implemented. They wanted an assurance that they were being
taken seriously and, interestingly, they talked about the opportunities
to widen the scope of the service such as giving help to what
they call recently bereaved young widows which of course is open
to interpretation. The British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association
expressed concerns at suggestions that the Welfare Service might
be absorbed by the work of voluntary organisations entirely. This
is a chance to scotch some of these rumours. I would be grateful
if you would tell us how you see the future of the War Pensioners
Welfare Service.
(Mr Hextall) It is clearly a valued service that
we want to continue and make the most of. The point about visiting
recently bereaved widows, I think someone said the other day the
welfare service is so old it is almost new because what they are
doing in the role of the caseworker and personal advisor is providing
a gateway to local services, to ex-service organisations, and
to the statutory and voluntary services that are available and
that is their key role. Increasingly we have been looking at giving
them a focus on life events so for the recently bereaved widow
we have undertakenit was a Secretary of State target last
year and a management target this yearto visit all newly
bereaved widows within 15 days of a visit being requested and
we are doing that and meeting it. In addition to that we have
undertaken over this last year to offer a visit to widows who
have not had a visit previously and we have written to some 5,000
widows as a result of that. The exercise is still on-going and
as a result of that some 150 have taken us up on the offer and
we have had a visit. So increasingly life events ought to trigger
us being interested in someone. In terms of giving guarantees
about the future, it is an excellent service as far as I am concerned
and we would want to continue to provide that excellent service.
The only doubt would be around the Prior Options Review that will
be considering the future of the Welfare Service as well as the
future of the Agency. I really do not know what the outcome of
that would be. I value the support we have received from ex-service
organisations in connection with the War Pensioners Welfare Service.
67. Is improving the quality and widening
the scope a policy that is actively considered?
(Mr Hextall) It is an on-going policy. Could I
invite Mr Burnham to comment?
Chairman
68. Alan Burnham?
(Mr Burnham) I had discussions with the war widows
on some of the points they raised in the letter and one in particular
we have pursued is the issue of the newly bereaved widow in service
because we had a number of cases where for a young widow there
was a good deal of support from the particular armed forces at
the time but our own welfare staff were not getting in touch for
anything up to six months later and much as that was appreciated
the comment was, "I wish you could have been around six months
ago particularly to help me through the morass of benefits not
just for war pensions but access to other DSS benefits."
So we were working with colleagues both in the Army, Navy and
the Air Force to ensure that where there is a death in service
case there is contact with the relevant welfare manager right
away. Even though there is a great deal of welfare support the
widow will know who the welfare manager is, which is particularly
relevant if they move out of service accommodation back to another
part of the country if we can make a link there and we can make
it a seamless service. That was very much a prompt from the war
widows we have been pursuing.
69. Is there regular not day-to-day but
regular contact with the voluntary organisations?
(Mr Burnham) Across a whole range. Particularly
in relation to the war widows there is a group called the Widows
Defence Working Group that brings together ourselves, SSAFA, the
Legion, the main organisations, and we meet about twice to year
to ensure that we co-ordinate and colleagues from the armed forces
are there as well. For about the past 18 months/two years the
main case working welfare organisations meet in the ex-Service
Welfare Liaison Group which has been put together primarily to
ensure that we do not waste resources on overlaps. The great thing
about welfare delivery in the ex-service field is the specialisms
that exist. There are many organisations, some targeting particular
groups, some with expertise across particular areas such as the
Legion in advocating appeals. Collectively we can deliver a much
better service than we can individually. If I have a criticism
of the situation I found when I first came into this work it was
tremendous effort and tremendous achievement but it tended to
be a bit compartmentalised. I think we have worked a lot with
the ex-service organisations in the last two or three years to
really get closer. You talked about how we could improve the service.
The one thing I would mark out in the next few years for dramatic
improvement is to continue that integration across the board.
Mr Dismore
70. When I was doing cases for widows of
fire fighters who had been killed in service in my previous life
we had a very well-established and well-developed welfare service
and the police do as well. Have you had any discussions with the
fire service and the police about how they do it because that
may well help your discussions?
(Mr Burnham) I must confess we have not, but we
will do so. Thank you for the prompt.
Chairman: Can we turn
then to the Prior Options Review? I know particularly Joan Humble
and Debra Shipley have concerns in this area. Joan is going to
start.
Mrs Humble
71. First of all, chair, I have to declare
an interest that Norcross is just on the boundary of my constituency
and I have visited it several times including the War Pensions
Agency and large numbers of my constituents work there so I was
actually very pleased to read in the written submissions that
most voluntary organisations concerned with war pensions applaud
the commitment of the staff who work there. I know from personal
experience from visiting it that people are very committed to
the job that they do. I found it very enjoyable going round and
I found some of the historical documents that you use as part
of your examination of claims fascinating, but that is by the
way. Nevertheless, there are some issues around the Prior Options
Review and I will ask you one or two questions and I will understand
if you cannot give me definitive answers because of the nature
of the timing of this meeting and the fact that you will now be
formulating your review to then be submitted to Government Ministers.
But, nevertheless, there are some issues and before moving on
to some of the staffing issues can I first of all raise with you
some of the concerns and indeed draw attention to the observations
of some of the voluntary organisations who by and large seem to
believe that the War Pensions Agency is doing a good job, thank
you very much, and leave it alone, nothing needs to be done with
it. Have you got an initial response to that?
(Mr Hextall) I recognise that comment and I am
quite pleased about it in actual fact.
72. Can you share with us what sort of issues
you are going to be addressing in the current review because it
has been going on for quite a while now? What sort of issues are
you looking at?
(Mr Hextall) We are not actually conducting the
review, we are helping to inform the review. The review is being
conducted independently within the DSS. The head of the planning
and finance division is chair of the steering group and he has
appointed an independent project manager and the steering group
has got people from the Treasury and the Cabinet Office as well
as from DSS on it. Our role is really to inform that project.
I think it was announced by parliamentary questions the week before
Christmas and is due to conclude with an announcement in the autumn,
which I am interpreting to be round about September. You are right
that we are in the middle of that process. I believe that there
will be two documents put into the public domain, one will be
an evaluation of the Agency's performance since it was given Agency
status five years ago and the other will be a recommendation about
how it is taken forward in the future. On the evaluation of the
Agency's performance, I am hoping and expecting that that will
say that the Agency achieved what it set out to do and it has
created, in my view, and this is probably one of the reasons why
the ex-service organisations are content with the current arrangements,
a focus for management attention on war pension claims. So I think
that ought to be reflected in the evaluation because we have met
targets and achieved efficiencies and done all the things that
the Agency set out to do. Granted there will be areas of criticism
I am sure because of the cases Andrew Dismore raised, things like
that, so there has got to be room for improvement in the future.
Is that sufficient for now?
73. I am not entirely clear but I am glad
that you have clarified your role within the overall Prior Options
Review. You meeting these targets that are being set for you has
to be set within the context of the wider picture of looking at
war pensions, the number of claimants and the number of claims
that you are dealing with. I am therefore interested in the graphs
that you have given us because, as you said when you circulated
this information, prior to receiving this information we had been
told that the number of claimants was declining and the Prior
Options Review and indeed the MoD Review are taking place within
the context of a reducing number of war pensioners and so all
of that was going to be the background to this. I just wonder
what therefore do you see as the major challenges for the War
Pensions Agency given that larger picture and how the information
we previously have been given about declining numbers and people
who are coming forward is then set in the context of your delivery
of service?
(Mr Hextall) I mentioned that my role is to inform
that decision-making process and the reason I produced those graphs
in the first place was to get across to the Prior Options Group
exactly the scenario that is real rather than the perceived scenario
of this very rapidly declining organisation that is not going
to have a life for very long. It was very pertinent and has arrested
that perception. They recognise that there is still a good deal
of work to do that is going to continue for quite some years,
certainly beyond the next life of the Agency of five years if
we were granted another five years. The Prior Options Review because
it is a Cabinet Office process has to go through a process of
examining options and even though there might not be a lot of
mileage in some of those options they still nevertheless have
to be considered and it needs to be demonstrated that this is
a non-viable option. The order in which they look at them is whether
the function can be abolished. In our case we have a legislative
responsibility for lots of war pensioners and therefore the function
cannot be abolished. The function still needs to be done by somebody.
Then whether it can be privatised or contracted out and I do not
believe that those two options, whilst they will have to be considered
and any recommendation will have to be supported, they are really
going to be serious considerations for the future. That is a personal
view. So we then come down to the real option that if this function
needs to continue how can it best be administered and most efficiently
administered in public service and could it be part of another
organisation? In the field we operate in, the likelihood is that
they will be considering whether we could be administered by the
Ministry of Defence or by the Benefits Agency or continue as a
separate Agency. I think they are probably likely to be the three
front runners which would receive real consideration. I think
that the view of the ex-service organisations is extremely relevant
and valuable in all of those considerations. Certainly they have
the opportunity to make their views known to the Prior Options
Review as well and have done. So I think it is over this next
period when those options start to be evaluated and even if we
were to continue as a separate Agency there are still some considerations
about the individual functions within the current services we
offer. The War Pensioners' Welfare Service is one which would
be scrutinised as to whether this was a valuable service and whether
it was a value for money.
74. What about the other?
(Mr Hextall) The Ilford Park Polish Home is another
one that has been identified. The question has been asked why
is the DSS administering a residential care and nursing home in
Devon? So that is another aspect and I think the medical services
and the way we provide our medical services through our own medical
advisers has been identified as an area for being questioned.
So there are a number of considerations. When I was thinking about
how this process is going I am feeling comfortable with the process.
I think it has been considered objectively by those involved in
it and I am having an opportunity to inform the debate but I really
cannot predict the outcome.
75. Although you may feel comfortable with
the process, when I talked to some of the people employed at War
Pensions they are rather less than comfortable because they feel
that this review has been going on for a long time and have understandable
concerns about their jobs. Norcross is a huge site and there are
lots of people employed there and some of the options you have
outlined the staff there fear may involve removal from Norcross
so there is staff uncertainty I did notice in your memorandum,
which I found very useful, that you do emphasis "valuing
our people". There is a whole section on that. Can I just
ask you how you are negotiating with your local unions, with local
employees, keeping them up to date with what is going on, offering
them the necessary reassurance because it is having a well-motivated
staff that is vital in the delivery of this essential service
and if the staff start to feel demoralised then they are not going
to be delivering that service? How are you actually keeping lines
of communication open with staff and letting them know what is
going on in as far as you can?
(Mr Hextall) We are formally and informally, and
my approach has been to be honest and explain to people what is
happening along the way. I have done it as recently as Monday
of this week at a conference of all of our managers. So I recognise
that there is likely to be some concern about the future of their
employment and have tried to reassure them that in actual fact
the job still has to be done. Whoever we report to in the end
the job still has to be done. The day-to-day work of the Agency
in processing claims and dealing with appeals and answering enquiries
all has to be done. They ought not have real fears is my message
for them for their own individual job prospects or anything like
that because the job still has to be done.
76. Are you emphasising as part of your
commitment to the review the fact there is skill and there is
expertise there that can be used by the DSS?
(Mr Hextall) Absolutely, I agree with you. I was
very impressed when I arrived at the Agency and set about going
round in my first week meeting as many people as I could. I was
very impressed by the calibre and quality and commitment of the
staff that are there and I do recognise that and dealing with
war pensions claims does take a while to build up that expertise
so I do value that.
Ms Shipley
77. Could I come in at that point then because
the Burma Star Association has told the Committee that they are
very concerned because a lot of work experience is being lost
through the introduction of early retirement as a way of reducing
staff levels and there you are actually losing the expertise which
you just said you valued, the experience you said takes time to
build up. Could you comment on that as the most useful way of
reducing staff?
(Mr Hextall) Yes, a year ago when I arrived in
the Agency, it was in May, I arrived on the back of an exercise
which had recognised that the workload had actually reduced and
a study had been done to identify the levels of staffing needed
to match the amount of work within the Agency. During 1997-98
something like 200 staff left the Agency, 82 of those on a voluntary
early retirement scheme. When I arrived apart from being impressed
by the commitment I was impressed by the turmoil of the Agency
because people had been moved around and were sitting at sections
with new colleagues, a new boss and getting used to a new alphabetical
split. There was a perception around certainly that this was an
Agency in decline and there was no future so I had to set about
convincing people that that was not the case. We came round about
last June to saying there were no special arrangements for people
leaving, normal conditions applied and we have since introduced
a number of promotion exercises which have really picked people
up. We have confirmed a number of short-term appointments and
made them permanent appointments because I am satisfied and convinced
that for the work we are currently doing the staff do match the
jobload. We have not had to do anything to increase the number
of staff reductions over the last 12 months and whilst this needs
to be closely watched to make sure we do keep pace with the workload,
what I want to do because of the decision-making and appeals improvement
we want to put in is focus the current staff on the work in progress.
There is a lot of work in progress and we need to get that work
in progress done. I think we have done an awful lot to improve
the morale of staff over the last 12 months and keep people informed.
78. I do not think I talked so much about
morale. Joan talked about morale. I was talking about losing expertise
which is a bit different.
(Mr Hextall) We did lose expertise towards the
end of last year but not during this year.
79. What sort of percentage of people are
now leaving on early retirement?
(Mr Hextall) None.
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