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 peoplewith
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 adviserthey 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 eventsbereavement, desertion
or divorce, onset of disability or ill-health, giving up work
to care for a relative who has suddenly become disabledare
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 careand 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 benefitsnot
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 achievedwithout
the need for sanctions, appeals and the very real risk of mistakes
on the scale of the Benefits Integrity Project.
Lorna ReithChief Executive
Disability Alliance
April 1999
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