Select Committee on Social Security Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 15

Memorandum by the Disability Alliance

Summary

  • We welcome the concept of the single gateway or one-stop shop. We believe that personal advisers could bring a much-needed individual approach to providing a quality service to disabled people.
  • However, we believe strongly that in order to be successful personal advisers will need to have appropriate training, qualifications, qualities and access to a range of back-up networks and resources.
  • We oppose the introduction of compulsory interviews for disabled people and carers. We believe compulsion is unnecessary and likely to undermine the trust which it will be essential to create between personal advisers and their clients.
  • We believe it is premature to take a decision on the need for compulsion before the pilot projects have been assessed. We believe that provided the service is properly publicised and of good quality there is no reason that it will not work well on a voluntary basis.
  • The timing of interviews will be very important if they are to be useful to people and not just another hurdle in the claiming process.
  • The scope of interviews must not be narrowly limited to employment. They should have a wide remit, covering benefit advice, information about training, volunteering and employment opportunities, referrals to appropriate local services (counselling, community care, carer support groups, independent living schemes) and signposting to other services (national disability organisations, self-help groups)
  • Practical issues like disabled access to offices, communication support, refunding of fares and respite care costs must be addressed.
  • Evaluation of the success of the scheme must not be limited to the number of people obtaining paid employment. It should include those entering training or education and those taking up voluntary work as well as user satisfaction with the services offered and increased take-up of benefits.
  • The Government should make available to disability organisations the guidance issued to staff involved in the pilot projects and should consult with disability organisations on Regulations before laying them before Parliament.

1. Introduction

1.1 Disability Alliance is a national registered charity with the principal aim of relieving the poverty and improving the living standards of disabled people. Our eventual aim is to break the link between poverty and disability.

1.2 We are a membership organisation with over 340 members which range from small self-help groups to major national disability charities. We are controlled by disabled people who form a majority of our Board of Trustees.

1.3 We provide information on social security benefits to disabled people, their families, carers and professional advisers, undertake research into the needs of disabled people—with a particular emphasis on income needs, and promote a wider understanding of the views and circumstances of all people with disabilities.

1.4 We are best known as the authors of the Disability Rights Handbook, an annual publication with a print-run of 30,000, but also run three telephone helplines and have an extensive programme of training courses aimed at professionals working in both the statutory and voluntary sectors.

1.5 Our policy work is informed by our daily contact with disabled people and those who provide services for them.

1.6 We welcome the opportunity to submit evidence to this joint Inquiry.

2. The Single Gateway

2.1 As we understand it the aim of the single gateway is to make it possible for a new claimant to claim most benefits at the same time (the one-stop concept) but also requires him/her to undergo a work-focused interview. This interview will not be compulsory until the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill is passed. The Bill introduces a requirement for people of working age, who claim the following benefits to take part in an interview before their claim can be processed: income support, housing benefit, council tax benefit, widows' and widowers' benefits (except bereavement payments), incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance and invalid care allowance.

2.2 In future, recipients of these benefits will also be required to take part in work-focused interviews when asked and failure to do so will result in loss of benefit.

2.3 The Government has indicated that there will be some limited provision for some people not to have an interview, or to have it deferred, because it would be neither helpful nor appropriate. The circumstances for this, and other matters such as what counts as good cause for non-participation, are to be defined in regulations. Government statements suggest that examples of people who would not have an immediate interview are those who are recently bereaved, lone parents with very young children, people with heavy caring commitments, those suffering an acute illness or those suffering from severe mental illness.

2.4 The scheme will be tested in 12 pilot areas, with the basic Phase One model commencing in June 1999 in four areas. The Phase Two model is planned to run from November 1999 in the remaining 8 areas and will have two "variants" which Government is keen to test. Four districts will use caller centres to enable claimants to make the initial claims or registration. The other four Phase Two districts will recruit private and voluntary sector help to administer the scheme.

3. Comments and Concerns

3.1 Compulsion

3.1.1 Although for disabled people and carers, interviews under the pilot schemes will not be compulsory, we believe it is important to consider the issues around compulsion since these will have a major impact on the operation of the scheme in the long term.

3.1.2 We oppose any additional elements of compulsion within the system. People claiming Jobseekers allowance already face compulsory work-focused interviews and those claiming incapacity benefits a compulsory medical All-work test. We believe further compulsion is unnecessary and likely to undermine the trust which it will be essential to create between personal advisers and their clients.

3.1.3 Disabled people face many barriers to education, training and employment. In principle, personal advisers could bring a much-needed individual approach, provided that they had appropriate training and were adequately resourced. However making the personal adviser interview compulsory and linking it to the claims process risks undermining any value the interview could have for the claimant and in some cases could result in a worsening of the claimant's health. Because the interview is compulsory, with the threat of benefit loss, claimants may well feel undermined, harassed and burdened by the requirement. If so they are likely to perceive the interviews as a hurdle in the benefit claim rather than a genuine offer of help.

3.1.4 The Government will be placing a considerable amount of responsibility and power in the hands of relatively junior staff. Whilst in theory Government assurances sound plausible it is all too easy to imagine that in the reality of a busy understaffed inner-city office things will work very differently. Will all claimants actually be sent three letters before benefit is stopped? What happens to the person with severe depression who doesn't respond? The carer who has given up work and ignores the letters because they don't seem relevant? The lone parent with a terminally ill child who is camping out at the hospital and has too much on her mind? What safeguards will there be to stop people like this from losing benefit? The personal adviser may be genuinely unaware of the claimant's circumstances.

3.1.5 There is a particular danger that claimants with an invisible impairment such as mental health problems, chronic fatigue or pain will feel under extra pressure because their disability will not be obvious to the adviser—they will be faced with having to justify and explain their incapacity one more time.

3.1.6 Claimants may be steered into ill-advised courses of action if the emphasis is on work regardless of its consequences for health, or if they think that the advice they are given has to be followed.

3.1.7 It seems to us to be premature to take a decision on the need for compulsion before the pilot projects have been assessed. We believe that provided the service is properly publicised and of good quality there is no reason that it will not work well on a voluntary basis.

3.2 Timing

3.2.1 The Government recognises that people first claim a benefit following a "life event". Indeed, the Benefits Agency's leaflets have just been completely redesigned on this basis. These sort of life events—bereavement, desertion or divorce, onset of disability or ill-health, giving up work to care for a relative who has suddenly become disabled—are almost without exception the wrong time to be calling someone in for an interview about their job prospects.

3.2.2 It is our view that great care will be needed to ensure that the job-focused interviews are conducted at the most appropriate time for the individual. For a recently divorced single parent with a severely disabled child it may be six months or longer after a claim for benefit has been made. For the disabled person who is in danger of losing their job then early intervention will be the most appropriate response. There will be groups, for example, those with severe mental ill-health, for whom the stress of an interview could well lead to a deterioration in their condition or even to self-harm. The Government will need to consult with disability organisations to ensure that such vulnerable groups can be properly identified and the most appropriate help offered.

3.2.3 Interview dates should be determined by when the claimant might be best able to make use of work related advice, rather than be determined by the date of their initial claim.

3.2.4 The target of conducting the interview within three days of initial contact seems completely unrealistic and a recipe for failure. There are many reasons why a three day time limit is inappropriate when dealing with disabled people or carers. Offices need to be fully accessible, disabled people may need to arrange for an enabler, advocate or carer to accompany them, blind people may need someone else to read their correspondence, deaf people may require communication support, those with mobility impairments may need to make special transport arrangements, carers may need to arrange and pay for respite care—and so on. Home visits may be necessary and should certainly be offered as an alternative for those whose disability makes attendance at an office particularly difficult. We would suggest that consideration be given to the establishment of specialist disability teams to build up expertise in providing services to disabled people.

3.2.5 We fear that delaying a benefit claim until the client has attended an interview is both unworkable and likely to cause severe hardship.

3.3 Scope

3.3.1 The purpose of the interview should not be limited to advice on overcoming barriers to participation in the labour market. There should also be a duty on personal advisers to provide information to disabled people and carers on all their potential benefit entitlements. Although disability living allowance is not one of the benefits that will trigger an interview it will still be important that staff are able to advise on eligibility for, and claiming of, DLA.

3.3.2 We understand that local authority staff will also be part of the Gateway, when dealing with claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. This raises a question about how consistency of standards is to be ensured and who will be responsible for the training of local authority staff.

3.3.3 Given the complexity of the benefits system advisers will require substantial training and re-training. Wrong advice could lead to claimants losing considerable sums of money. Examples of the complexity of advice needed could include:

    (a)  Looking at all the options available to a disabled person who is able to work part-time, such as:
  •   moving into employment and topping up wages with the Disabled Persons Tax Credit
  •   claiming Income Support and earning up to £15 pw
  •   undertaking therapeutic work (if on Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance) and earning up to £58pw

      To complicate matters further which of the above is the best option can depend on a number of additional factors. Income Support provides access to free health benefits such as prescription charges, potentially a significant factor for a disabled person. But it is not clear whether the new tax credit will passport people to health benefits. The definition of therapeutic work means that only some disabled people with certain conditions can qualify.

    (b)  Advising a carer to claim Invalid Care Allowance may seem straightforward and sensible. However, this will stop the disabled person they are caring for getting the Severe Disability Premium, payable as part of Income Support and Worth £39.75pw. The rules prohibit ICA and SDP being in payment at the same time. This particular conflict is likely to become very much more important once the restrictions on the contribution conditions for Incapacity Benefit set out in the Welfare Reform Bill come into effect.

    (c)  Advising a disabled person who is getting a substantial care package from their local authority. If the disabled person moves into employment it is likely that a large part of their salary will go back to the local authority in payment for community care charges. Unless they can command a high salary it is unlikely a severely disabled person in this position will be any better off in work.

3.4 Access issues

3.4.1 All offices to be used for interviews need to have full disabled access, for those with mobility impairments and also for those with sensory impairments. Arrangements will need to be made to provide communication support. Fares to attend interviews should be refunded as these can be costly for those who have to use taxis. Arrangements will be needed to cover the cost of respite care when a carer is called for interview. In rural areas assurances will be needed that interviews will be arranged to fit in with local public transport services. Written communications need to be available in alternative formats like tape, braille and minority languages. These practical problems will be there whether or not the scheme is compulsory but the stakes are much higher with compulsion since something as simple as the absence of a rural bus service on a particular day could mean loss of benefit.

3.4.2 Some people with mental health problems may not be able to cope with going for an interview but may be just as worried by the idea of an officer visiting them in their own home. Letting people know that they can take a friend or adviser with them to the interview or have someone present at home will be important.

3.5 Targets and evaluation

3.5.1 It will be important that any targets set for personal advisers are not limited to the number of people obtaining paid employment. They should also include those entering training or education and those taking up voluntary work. User satisfaction with the services offered should also be measured as should increased take-up of benefits. Feedback from claimants should be built into the pilot projects. It will also be vital to check that advice on entitlement to other benefits is done properly. Since the claimant is unlikely to be able to judge this it will be necessary to involve welfare rights advice experts in conducting a checking exercise. In order to be able to do this effectively all advice giving by interviewers must be properly recorded.

4. Conclusion

4.1 Discussions held before the publication of the Welfare Reform Bill referred to a single gateway, rather than the more limited work-focused gateway. The idea of a single gateway, similar to the one-stop shops run by many local authorities and to proposals set out by the Benefits Agency some years ago, was very welcome. As an advice agency working with disabled people we are well aware of the difficulties and duplications inherent in the current system. We know how easy it is for claims to go missing between different sections of the system. We also know how confusing and off-putting it is for individual claimants and how easy it is for claimants to miss out on their entitlements. The system can also result in overpayments of benefits—not as a result of fraud but because the claimant assumed that one part of the system exchanged information with another.

4.2 We welcome the idea of personal advisers and believe they could bring a much-needed individual approach to providing a quality service to disabled people. However, we believe strongly that in order to be successful personal advisers will need to have appropriate training, qualifications, qualities and access to a range of back-up networks and resources.

4.3 We are concerned that instead of helping people who could make use of information and advice the compulsory interview will place an undue burden on people whose incapacity or caring responsibilities mean that they cannot work, and may inhibit some vulnerable people from pursuing claims for benefits to which they are otherwise entitled. We believe that personal adviser services should be offered on a voluntary basis after benefit entitlement has been established.

4.4 There is a danger that the sheer numbers of claimants going for interviews could easily result in the process becoming a mere formality with little benefit for anyone.

4.5 The Government should make available to disability organisations the guidance issued to staff involved in the pilot projects and should consult with disability organisations on the regulations before laying them before Parliament.

4.6 The most effective way of supporting disabled people would be to have a single gateway with a broad remit, covering benefit advice, information about training, volunteering and employment opportunities, referrals to appropriate local services (counselling, community care, carer support groups, independent living schemes), signposting to other services (national disability organisations, self-help groups).

4.7 Provided the single gateway and personal adviser interviews were voluntary they could become an excellent model of how "joined-up Government thinking" translated into practice. As such their usefulness would ensure their popularity and the Government's objectives could be achieved—without the need for sanctions, appeals and the very real risk of mistakes on the scale of the Benefits Integrity Project.

Lorna Reith—Chief Executive

Disability Alliance

April 1999


 
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