Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 117)
MONDAY 10 MAY 1999
MR JOHN
FINDLAY, MS
DIANA WHITWORTH
AND MS
NATALIE CRONIN
100. Finally, clearly we need to see how the
role of the registration and orientation officer links into the
role of the personal adviser, but are there any particular aspects
of those two roles which you would like to see drawn out of the
pilot projects, the evaluation of the pilot projects? Clearly
the Government has listed the aims it has for the Single Work-Focused
Gateways and the evaluation will be testing those aims, but are
there particular areas of the roles of those key staff which you
would also like to see evaluated?
(Ms Whitworth) One of the things we would
like to see measured out of it is whether or not there is more
effective take-up of benefits and more focus on that area in the
evaluation. As I said before, we would also like the evaluation
to move outside the projects to look at those people and talk
to those people who chose not to go through the pilot as carers
and to explore with them why they did not. I think this would
deal with some of the areas which John Healey raised about carers
on Invalid Care Allowance and why they may not be able to work,
but to explore that with them because one of the problems is that
it will not be looking at them. I think too there should be more
focus on the local information that is available and support links
in with voluntary agencies who will be able to provide that sort
of information about what services are available locally, what
employers locally are providing, carer friendly employment policies
or can provide suitable employment, there should be more focus
on that.
Chairman: Can we move on, the time is fleeting?
I want to bring in Andrew and then Candy.
Mr Dismore
101. I would like to talk about claim benefit
and what problems the people you deal with have when they try
and claim benefit in the first place and then in subsequent claims.
(Mr Findlay) If I can kick off with that.
One of the big concerns that we have got just now is that when
you go to registration and orientation there will be a three day
gap before you go to your work-focused interview and there are
potential delays in getting benefit paid to you. There is a whole
range of different issues like housing benefit, council tax benefit,
Child Support Agency, income support, which will have to be dealt
with. We are concerned this process may well delay the payment
of benefit.
102. I am talking about the problems you are
experiencing now.
(Mr Findlay) Yes, sure. I thought I would
put that in.
103. I want to know what the problems are now.
(Mr Findlay) The problems now that we
have tried to identify in our paper are for a lone parent to take
part in some of the New Deal initiatives, like under 24, they
have to transfer from income support to Jobseeker's Allowance
and that is supposed to be a seamless transfer between the two
benefits where they get the same amount. We have detailed in our
submission that for many lone parents that has not been the case,
people have gone two weeks or more without any benefit. On the
transfer between benefits, the way it works just now in Glasgow,
we have an employment zone and that same process has to happen
just now, the transfer from income support to Jobseeker's Allowance.
There is a big issue about if you are trying to get into certain
employment related schemes and if you have to change benefit.
I think in terms of claiming income support at the minute people
are making that benefit claim and our experience has been that
if they fill in the form properly they get a visit in the home
and then they get the benefit, there is not a huge difficulty.
(Ms Whitworth) Can I say on benefits that the biggest
problem with benefits for carers now is that the level of Invalid
Care Allowance is too low at £39.95 a week for a minimum
of 35 hours caring a week. We are concerned also about the gap
between the Invalid Care Allowance earnings limit of £50
and the lower earnings limit of £66.
104. I was not asking about the levels of benefit,
I was asking about the mechanisms and processes which is what
the Gateway is about.
(Ms Whitworth) I can say information.
Can I just say that one of the benefits of this system, and inevitably
we are concentrating on the problems, one of the things which
we have welcomed is the fact that this process will bring together
a lot of information at one point and it is very welcome for that
reason. Many of the people who are carers are not heavy end carers
and will benefit from that.
105. Do you want to add anything, Natalie?
(Ms Cronin) I just want to add to the
point you made about having the right information. The experience
of somebody who came to one of our projects who was a lone parent
who managed to get back into work. She did not know about the
New Deal. When she was given the New Deal information leaflet
it did not have the most crucial point for her, which was about
needing to activate a claim within seven days of starting work
to get an extension on housing benefit and council tax. That illustrates
for me quite clearly the need for information and how missing
a very basic point of information like that meant that for four
weeks she missed out on her housing benefit and council tax and
that made an enormous difference. Also the cycles of being in
and out of work and getting back into the benefit system should
be better linked in and the Single Gateway could be a good way
of doing that.
106. You think the Single Gateway can make a
contribution towards that sort of problem?
(Ms Cronin) Yes, but I think that it
has to be really well carried out in the detail.
107. What about take up of benefit, can the
Single Gateway help with that or are there take up of benefit
issues that you come across generally?
(Mr Findlay) I think the Single Gateway
could provide great assistance for claimants in that way if it
was to look at maximisation of benefits, or access to things like
Disability Living Allowance, things you probably do not usually
get when you make a claim to benefit. I think if it was to do
that it could be very beneficial.
(Ms Whitworth) I agree, and since one of the problems
that carers have is that there are not as many of them or they
are not dealt with as often by officers very often people dealing
with them at the Department of Social Security do not recognise
them and what the benefits are that they are entitled to. We would
expect the quality of service for them to be improved.
108. You mentioned earlier on the point about
information in advance, what are the main criticisms you have
with the system at the moment?
(Ms Whitworth) It is an extremely complex
system. A carer may need to claim several benefits. Invalid Care
Allowance is the one that we have been talking about but they
may be entitled to income support or housing benefit which come
from a different source. Of course they will be entitled to a
council tax allowance following the National Carers Strategy.
There is a whole range of sources of help available to them. Our
Carersline is one source of good information on that. It would
certainly be a huge improvement if that information was available
from Government office.
109. Anything you want to add?
(Ms Cronin) Just a very quick one about
the perverse incentives. Some of our projects advisers who work
with young people who are not in employment education and training
say the young people they speak to do not like to go to New Deal
work-focused interviews. They do not want to go to them because
they think that there are incentives for the people who are interviewing
them to get them off benefit. They are wary of going down that
track because they fear loss of benefits as being the motive for
the interview rather than getting them into work because there
is not any work in their area.
Ms Atherton
110. Following on from that, people's concerns,
do you think the atmosphere in the building and the environment
in which they might be interviewed is a key factor in the success
or otherwise of the interview with the personal adviser? If you
could do a changing rooms of Benefit Agency officers or job centres,
what would you do in that half an hour or two days!
(Mr Findlay) Probably create mayhem,
I think! Interestingly enough in reading the idea is to have a
more user friendly environment which is open plan. I think that
would be important to create the atmosphere of trust and communication
but also as part of these interviews lone parents are going to
be asked to provide some very difficult or confidential information,
ie about the Child Support Act, about the absent father who may
or may not have been violent, so there should be an area where
confidential information can be given as well as having an open
plan touchy feely area.
111. You like touchy feely?
(Mr Findlay) Yes.
112. Not on computer screens or on computer
screens?
(Mr Findlay) Personally I would prefer
it without computer screens but I am a bit of a technophobe.
113. The others?
(Ms Whitworth) I would echo all of that.
I suppose I would add that a lot of the interviews will of necessity
perhaps need to take place in the home because carers will not
be able to leave the person they are caring for behind or, if
not, they will have to pay for appropriate respite care for that
interview to take place. There are some other wider issues. Clearly
proper facilities for child care. I think my colleagues are much
better able to talk about those than I am.
114. Natalie?
(Ms Cronin) About child care, the people
who use our projects tell us they go into Benefit Agency offices
and there is nowhere for people to go, there is no loo, there
is no privacy, they are made to feel a millimetre high, that kind
of thing. If those basic things can at least be got right that
would be a start.
Ms Atherton: Thank you.
Chairman
115. Thank you very much. I think we would like
to keep you rather longer but we have got a couple of other witnesses
waiting for us. I have got the impression that you really have
got a lot of goodwill towards the concept of the Single Focused
Gateway but very much you were telling us that the relationship
of trust is the one which is going to be absolutely crucial if
it is going to assist the people that you represent and perhaps
there may be a difficult period whilst that trust is being established.
Do you think that is about right?
(Mr Findlay) I think so. I think also
that it has to be widened out from work-focused to client-focused,
taking account of the needs of the client and their family.
116. Say that again because I think that is
absolutely crucial.
(Mr Findlay) I think it needs to be client-focused
rather than work-focused and take into account the needs of the
client and their family.
117. There was a very important piece of evidence
which struck me where it seemed to be suggested that we may be
suggesting by over-focusing on work that extremely crucial jobs
like caring were not the best, not the thing which really people
should be doing, but they should be trying to get into work, whereas
you would want to say that caring in itself is a good job, perhaps
the best, for that particular person?
(Ms Whitworth) Yes.
(Mr Findlay) Yes.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
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