Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
MONDAY 10 MAY 1999
MR JOHN
FINDLAY, MS
DIANA WHITWORTH
AND MS
NATALIE CRONIN
Mr Pond
80. I wanted to ask some questions about the
rather thorny issue of compulsion. I know that is an issue which
in particular the Carers National Association was concerned about
when the Welfare Reform Bill was going through the Committee stage.
You will be aware the Bill does have a requirement to attend an
interview and that does have certain benefit penalties attached
to it, even though, apart from the job seekers, there will be
no requirement to take up any of the options offered. One of the
points John made a few moments ago was about the difficulty for
lone parents in terms of whether work was the appropriate option,
and can I first ask John to address the point about the experience
from the pilots on the New Deal for Lone Parents which found that
although at the early stage when people were asked for interview
many decided not to, those who did attend an interview were given
some of the options and in the majority of cases, I think nine
out of ten, actually went to the next stage and took the options
up. Does that not suggest that there is some role for compulsion
in terms of getting people to the interview stage?
(Mr Findlay) Our view of the New Deal
for Lone Parents is that it has only been rolled out properly
for a matter of months and we do not really know how the voluntary
element of it is working. If you look at the figures, and there
is some research which has been done about how many lone parents
feel they are ready to go into work now, it is one in three one
in four, and the response rate to letters going out is roughly
that. What we have got is that the people who are in that position
feel that they are ready to go to work and are therefore taking
part in the New Deal for Lone Parents, whereas the other ones,
where there is ill health of the child or recent family break-down,
do not feel it is appropriate and have not been attending. My
view is that we have not really given the voluntary element of
it a chance. There was a press release which came out last week
which highlighted how lone parents actually value the voluntary
nature of the New Deal for Lone Parents and feel that has not
been given a chance to operate effectively before being evaluated
to see how it works and before we go down the road to compulsion.
I think if we go down the road to compulsion too soon, that is
sending out a very negative message to lone parents who are in
difficult circumstances.
81. Diana, I think your association did have
particular concerns about compulsion for interview?
(Ms Whitworth) I would like to say on
that particular point that one of the concerns we have about the
pilots is that they are voluntary, and the nature of the fact
it is voluntary means we will not be finding out through the pilots
how the heavy end of caring will actually feel about this and
what their experiences will be like, and we are very keen that
they should be involved through interviews, and we would be very
happy to provide access to people so you could actually learn
more about their feelings about it. Going back to the business
of compulsion, yes, we do have concerns. First of all, in order
to be entitled to the invalid care allowance you have to go through
a number of hoops in any case, and the person you are caring for
has to be receiving disability living allowance at the middle
or top end, and in addition you have to demonstrate that you are
caring for 35 hours a week or more. Arguably 35 hours a week or
more caring is equivalent to a working week for a lot of people.
When the announcement was made in October and indeed when it has
been leaked and there were articles in the press about it, our
Carersline was inundated with people ringing up extremely distressed
about the notion. For example, somebody who is caring for his
wife 24 hours a day, up three times a night, she has got a degenerative
disease, he has to help with toileting, slowly becoming incontinent,
in those circumstances he feels the state is not valuing his contribution
as a carer and he feels extremely stressed and worried at the
notion he is going to be asked to even consider work. We therefore
feel that the Invalid Care Allowance should not be a trigger for
this process, though we think that it is proper that there will
be some carers in receipt of Invalid Care Allowance who may wish
to go through the work focused interview, because they recognise
they are coming to the end of their caring time or for whatever
reason. If that were not to be the case, then we think that the
issue of deferral is something which needs to be looked at carefully,
and we would hope that those in receipt of invalid care allowance
would be able to defer their interview and that an interview would
only take place if the personal adviser could demonstrate that
there was good reason for the interview to go ahead.
82. Following that line of argument, and I am
going to ask Natalie to respond to some of these things in a moment,
obviously regulation will specify circumstances in which an interview
may be deferred or there may be reasons why it should not take
place at all, but would you say there are particular categories?
If you were drafting this regulation, which categories would each
of you exempt?
(Ms Whitworth) You mean apart from the
point I have already made about those in receipt of invalid care
allowance?
83. Yes.
(Ms Whitworth) I do not think I can answer
that question immediately. I would have to give that some thought.
We have talked in general terms about it but clearly you will
need to have quite complex regulations and, to be honest, there
seems little point in having regulation when you already have
a law which is acting as a barrier in any case to people having
access to the invalid care allowance. It seems a waste of time,
a waste of public money, but I am very happy to go away and come
back with an answer for you.
Mr Pond: It might be helpful if we could have
a note on that<fu1>1.
Chairman: That would be helpful.
Mr Pond
84. Natalie, could I ask you about the general
issue of compulsion and any particular groups which you think
regulation should provide different treatment for?
(Ms Cronin) I would like to separate
out the exemption, where groups would not at any stage be called
for interview, and I would not be representing anybody within
those groups. I would like to concentrate on those for whom the
interview would be deferred and as I understand it, I think the
onus should be on the adviser to show there should not be a deferral
rather than the other way around. Within that category I would
put families with children under five. For all the next categories
I would say families as a wider range but I think we would concentrate
on lone parent families, if we had to whittle down the categories.
I would also put in large families with, say, four or more children,
who are more likely to be from ethnic minorities, and then people
whose life circumstances have changed such as if there has been
a family break-down. Also, if a child has lost one parent and
they then lose the other to the work place, that may not be the
most helpful way to help that family. Finally, mental health,
if you have a couple with one with heavy caring responsibilities
towards the other partner, work may not be the best option at
that point.
Mr Pond: Are we not assuming, and perhaps John
would also like to respond to this, that the interview itself
albeit compulsory is a form of penalty? You are there listing
categories of people who might indeed find it difficult to take
on work or training as some of the other options, but you seem
to be suggesting that just the interview with a personal adviser
itself would be onerous and difficult. Would there not be some
of those people within those categories who might benefit from
contact with a personal adviser and get some idea of the options
available but with no compulsion to take on any of the options?
Chairman
85. For example, if I can interpose, if the
personal adviser was going to offer advice about education and
training options which may be available as well as work options,
do you think that might be helpful?
(Ms Cronin) I think linking it with training
is an important element which we have not touched on so far. I
was concerned also about families who have children with disabilities
and who have heavy caring responsibilities, they are freeing up
the time for something which they feel is not appropriate for
them at that time and the anxiety that it may cause may be less
constructive.
<fo1>1 See Ev. p. 72-3. (Mr Findlay)
Could I go back a wee bit to the regulation versus guidance issue
that you raised? I am not going to go through a list of what I
think should be dealt with in the regulation because I know that
is an incredibly difficult task and one that would require a great
deal of thought. There are various categories mentioned within
the White Paper that would suggest there has been some thinking
done on it. I think it is the whole issue about whether it should
be guidance or regulation that needs to be looked at very carefully.
Our experience with the Child Support Act is that guidance and
not regulation with undue harm and distress has shown that from
a variety of different offices, Benefit Agency sources, the reaction
can be completely different from the same set of circumstances
causing lone parents a great deal of distress. I think that is
our concern about when guidance is put down on a global issue,
that it is open to interpretation and can be dependent on the
type of adviser we have got. I know from reading previous minutes
of your meetings that what has been said is that if people are
trained to high standards that would not happen. It has to be
said that it has been our experience that it does happen and I
think it would happen no matter how good the training that is
put in place. That is an issue that I think is very, very important:
guidance or regulation.
Mr Pond
86. Can I ask Diana and Natalie also their views?
It is clear from officials giving evidence that there would be
a considerable amount of flexibility in the official's ability
to determine the advisers, the ability to determine whether interviews
should be deferred or whether a particular individual needs special
treatment. Are you happy with that amount of flexibility?
(Ms Whitworth) I think I would agree
in terms of the exemptions that there should be regulations and
not guidance because I think that will make it easier for the
advisers as well as clear for carers or indeed anybody else who
might be asked to go for an interview. It is also equitable. It
will also save time and a lot of argument. The second point was
about regulations — I have forgotten, sorry, can you remind
me?
87. Yes. It was generally about the discretion
that the advisers would have.
(Ms Whitworth) Yes. I think in some areas,
those of us who go back a long way in the whole benefit system,
particularly myself who worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau,
do look back on the era of discretion with some affection because
it was easier perhaps to negotiate things out of the system. So
discretion in some areas may be appropriate but certainly in some
of these areas it will be very important that there is very clear
regulation.
Chairman: I think John has a couple of questions
and then we will move on to Joan.
Mr Healey
88. Thank you. I want to come in on the territory
of the compulsion, if I may, in two areas. Diana, specifically
to you, in your evidence you have told us about the fears you
have got about those entitled to Invalid Care Allowance and in
your evidence you point out also that at least 10 per cent who
receive Invalid Care Allowance also work despite having to show
that they care for the person they care for at least 35 hours
a week. How do they manage that?
(Ms Whitworth) Because they are determined
to, I imagine. As I said, people who are in receipt of Invalid
Care Allowance may indeed be able to work part-time but it poses
huge problems. People who are working in respect of Invalid Care
Allowance cannot earn more than £50 a week which means with
a minimum wage of £3.60 they would be working very few hours
indeed. Last week I received a letter from somebody on the Isle
of Wight who was telling me about her experience. She is in receipt
of Invalid Care Allowance and she looks after her mother. She
decided she simply had to get out of the house and she got a job
working a few hours at a swimming pool in a cafe part-time but
when she told them she could not earn more than £50 a week
they felt that was a huge difficulty for them because that meant
she could not do any overtime, her hours were very limited. There
are very great difficulties in this area. It raises huge difficulties.
89. If it is an option that at least one in
ten take up, is it not at least arguable that it may be an option
that others in this category might wish to try and pursue and
that the interview with the personal adviser may be the very route
by which they are going to get those options opened up to them
because otherwise they may simply not know how to go about it?
(Ms Whitworth) You are absolutely right
and that is why we agreed it should be voluntary.
90. Let me test this because from my experience
of the New Deal the whole concern and fear about compulsion is
the fear that really has not been realised throughout. Let me
just ask you to pursue the point Chris was making, whether you
are against compulsion per se or whether you draw the line
at what is notionally called this work-focused interview. Do you
have any objection to the registration and orientation stage being
compulsory?
(Ms Whitworth) If you were going to separate
it out I think we would need to consider that.
91. It is two stages, it is not, it is likely
to be two separate interviews possibly with two different people?
Do you have an objection to the registration and orientation interview
being compulsory for people who should claim the benefit?
(Ms Whitworth) I think I would need to
think about that. What I would say is that anybody who is a new
claimant would have to go through a process of being assessed
in any case to receive that claim. If that was what you call registration
and orientation then I would say that was an appropriate process.
92. How about the allocation of a personal adviser
who, as colleagues have pointed out, in the course of their discussion
or interview may be discussing issues of child care, cover for
respite care, education and training opportunities, it may not
simply be a question of, "Here is a job you have to consider
taking it"?
(Mr Findlay) I think maybe at the registration
period, that is when these potential benefits of a personal adviser
could be raised with the individual claimant. The other question
is why make it compulsory? Is there something there that says
that people would not go to a personal adviser if it was put to
them that they could get a range of information and advice? That
is my question: why make it compulsory when we have not tried
to say to people "If you go down that road this is what we
can offer". If you are going to make a claim for benefit
you will meet somebody, so that is a fact which will happen. At
that point all these benefits can be explained to the individual
claimant and then they can make a choice.
(Ms Whitworth) Can I add on this—
Chairman: Would you mind, I think the time is
passing. We need to move on. We can come back to it because we
are going to move on to personal advisers. Joan has got some questions
on that.
Mrs Humble
93. Can I pick up on John's comments that this
is a two stage process? A lot of people have concentrated on the
importance of a personal adviser and I am going to ask you a few
questions about what training you would expect these people to
have. There is going to be that initial stage of the registration
and orientation officer, unless the Government can come up with
a snappier title. Can I ask you, therefore, first of all what
sort of training you would expect that person to have? They are
going to be the first individual that somebody sees when they
enter the new Work-focused Gateway. That person is going to sit
down with them and hopefully be friendly and welcoming and ask
them basic questions. What sort of training do you think the registration
and orientation staff ought to have?
(Ms Whitworth) As with all these things,
it is always odd in organisations that you put your least trained
person on the front line. It is in any organisation the receptionist
who is the worst paid person in the building and yet has to have
some of the best inter-personal skills. I think you have identified
already inter-personal skills as being terribly important. It
very much depends, going back to what John Healey was asking about
this work focus, if in this interview, whether it is registration
and orientation, whichever stage, if the focus is on work rather
than what this person needs in the way of support, the whole family
and their circumstances, then I think you have a very different
set of skills. If you are actually asking somebody to think about
what is going to be the best for this person, they have to be
able to identify really very much the same sort of things that
the personal adviser will have to deal with, and I would think
they would have to have a fairly broad knowledge of the benefit
system, and as far as carers are concerned they would have to
understand at least what carers were about and what caring issues
were about and what is involved in looking after somebody and
the different types of caring problems that people have to deal
with. But it is very difficult to see the skills they would have
would be tremendously different from those of the personal adviser.
(Mr Findlay) I would agree with that because at the
end of the day they are the ones who are going to make the decision
about whether you go on to the next stage. The R&O officer
is going to make that decision and it is there they have the discretion
to assess whether or not there are circumstances to defer the
next interview, so they do need to have a broad range of skills
equivalent almost to the personal adviser.
94. So you see them more than being simply a
glorified receptionist or a highly trained receptionist?
(Mr Findlay) Yes, because they are making
the decision about somebody. People are saying, "I have recently
been widowed and I have to care for two children", and they
are the ones who are saying, "Right, you do not go into the
next stage of the interview", so it is they who have the
discretion, as far as I can see from reading but perhaps I have
picked that up wrongly. They need to have a range of skills to
understand that they have to get information from the person which
allows them to make that decision on the right grounds.
(Ms Cronin) I would agree. Either you have a regulated
system where you can have somebody with not such a broad range
of skills as the adviser, or you go for someone who has greater
discretion who needs much better training. I would add to that
access to a pool of information which would enable them to make
decisions even if they do not have a full grasp of all the different
benefits and how they interlink. So in the same way that they
have done for the child support testing, the adviser is linked
by phone to a pool of advisers they can consult on specialist
matters, so they do not need to have the full specialist knowledge.
So I would recommend concentrating on personal skills and those
skills being linked to the people the advisers are meeting, such
as people with disabilities, people who have experienced difficult
personal circumstances.
95. From the very limited information we have
got about how Government sees this actually developing in practice,
and of course we are going to have to evaluate the many pilots
very carefully, that registration and orientation individual will
be looking at fairly basic detail—name and address and fairly
basic information—from the individual and then pass them
on to the personal adviser who is supposed to have those special
skills. I have listened to what you have said about the registration
and orientation officer needing skills but I am trying to differentiate
between the two roles. I want to ask you detailed questions about
the personal adviser but I am interested in how you would differentiate
the roles, that initial face to face contact and then going on
into the detailed questioning?
(Ms Whitworth) My response was very much
coloured by John Healey's question which was saying, what was
the harm of going into a registration and orientation interview
and would that not be helpful. If it is merely just signing on,
taking details, checking the regulations to see whether or not
you go through to the next stage, then I would say that is probably
something which could be done over the phone and you do not need
to attend an interview. It is a process, it is a signing on. But
if it is more than that, you certainly have got to have a lot
more information and it is a complex, difficult and sensitive
job to do. I am only talking about the caring side of it and I
see that as being a very difficult job. You add to it all the
other issues and you have a very complicated scenario which will
involve a lot of training and on-going training in order to maintain
standards.
96. Do you think that the registration and orientation
interview might be different in the pilots which are going to
be call centres and ones where there are going to be face-to-face
interviews?
(Ms Cronin) Some of the users of our
projects have told us of very variable quality in the New Deal
for Lone Parent pilots at the call centres. Some are very good
and some are a lot less good.
97. Do you think there are lessons to be learned
there from the personal advisers in the New Deal which we should
look at here?
(Ms Cronin) At least having an even level
of quality.
98. Moving on to the role of the personal advisers,
I noted in the submission your organisation made, John, that you
gave us examples of New Deal interviews for lone parents. What
sort of lessons do you think can be learnt from the use of the
personal adviser role in the New Deal to help the Single Gateway
develop successfully?
(Mr Findlay) I think it is really in
the realms of the training and information they have available
to them. One of the interesting areas is access to child care,
which is absolutely crucial for lone parents to be able to access
work. We have not got the child care infrastructure yet. We have
the Child Care Strategy, we have the Working Families Tax Credit,
these are all things which are going to happen but at the moment
we do not have the child care infrastructure there, and for personal
advisers more often than not it is, "Here is a list of child
minders", it has not been an in-depth analysis of what a
lone parent needs and how they can access it. So it is really
the range of information they have at their fingertips which is
important, which goes back to the point I made earlier, it will
be hard for the personal adviser to have the range of information
just on the basis of what the three of us sitting here today say.
What has been valuable has been the training and knowledge that
New Deal advisers have got which gives lone parents confidence
in taking the next step. I think that is absolutely crucial. When
things happen and someone gets information about a job with pay
which it is not worth their while to take, if the personal adviser
has not gone through that with them and they end up going for
a job interview and finding that out for themselves, then the
New Deal adviser loses credibility through that. So I think the
very important thing is the range of knowledge and skills for
the client area you are dealing with.
99. So how do you think the fact we have generalist
personal advisers will affect individual client groups? Are you
expecting the personal adviser to work as part of a team where
there might not be one person having the full range of knowledge
but in working in teams they can access other people in order
to satisfy each of your particular client groups?
(Mr Findlay) I think that is how they
are going to have to do it. It is the only way I can see it being
done.
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