Examination of Witnesses (Questions 145
- 159)
MONDAY 17 MAY 1999
MR RICHARD
EXELL, MS
PAT HAWKES,
MR FRANK
BONNER, MR
ALAN CHURCHARD
AND MR
KEITH WYLIE
Chairman
145. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Can
I declare the public session of evidence open. We have got the
advantage of representatives from the Public and Commercial Services
Union together with the Trades Union Congress with us this afternoon
together with some officials from the relevant departments. I
wonder if from a TUC point of view you could just say a word about
what you do in relation to your work in the TUC and then perhaps
Frank can do the same. Maybe the rest of our guests could just
say a word about what they all do for the record.
(Mr Exell) Thank you very much indeed,
Chairman. We are very grateful that you have given us the opportunity
to come along this afternoon. My name is Richard Exell, I am the
Senior Policy Officer for Welfare to Work issues at the TUC. I
am here with my colleague, Pat Hawkes, who is a member of our
General Council and the Chair of our Disability Forum. The TUC's
particular interest in the Gateway is that we regard ourselves
as one of the stakeholders in the social security system with
a long standing interest in Welfare to Work issues. Trades unions
have become increasingly concerned about access to employment
for disabled people which is an issue that we highlighted in our
written comments. We are hoping that we will have an opportunity
this afternoon to talk about that.
146. Frank, perhaps you could do the same.
(Mr Bonner) If I can pass to Alan Churchard who is
our Deputy General Secretary and who will be leading for us.
(Mr Churchard) My name is Alan Churchard, I am a Deputy
General Secretary of the PCS. I have a broad responsibility for
this area of policy. PCS's main interest in this area is that
it is our members who have to deliver the Single Gateway process
and, therefore, we obviously have a direct and key interest in
the outcomes, particularly in the pilots which are coming up very
shortly. Could I introduce my colleagues.
147. If you could do that, that would be very
helpful.
(Mr Churchard) On my right is Frank Bonner who is
the Group Secretary for our members in the Employment Service
and on my left is Mr Keith Wylie who is Deputy Group Secretary
for our members in the Benefits Agency. I am sure you will understand
that both have a keen interest in the Single Gateway.
148. Thank you very much. You have both in your
ways, I think the TUC slightly earlier and the PCS relatively
recently, sent us very helpful memoranda which set our your general
overarching views of Single Work-Focused Gateway pilots that we
are considering this afternoon. I would like to perhaps set the
scene by asking an introductory question and a question that flows
from that about whether, in fact, your welcome is sustained now
that you know in a wee bit more detail what is proposed. There
were some pretty sweeping aspirations set out in the Government's
original plans talking about the needs for transformation and
integrated services and empowerment and personalised, localised
introduction to the new way that the Government is delivering
the services. Do you still feel confident that the way that the
Government is doing these things is the right way to go about
it?
(Mr Exell) Perhaps if I might ask Pat to come in on
this.
(Ms Hawkes) We in the TUC for some time have argued
for a reform of benefits administration very similar to what the
Government now proposes. We have responded frequently in the past
on that. We generally are supportive, we are just concerned about
some of the detail, which I am sure we will go into after a while,
about the individual needs and how individuals are going to be
dealt with.
(Mr Churchard) Again, we are very supportive of the
general idea. As I think you outlined yourself, the proposals
are very sweeping, in fact are probably the most dramatic reforms
of the social security system for several decades, almost since
the inception of the basic schemes. It is a very ambitious project
but we are supportive of the general idea. There is an awful lot
of work to be undertaken in these pilots and beyond before everyone
can be happy and satisfied that it is a practical exercise. Certainly
in terms of the broad proposal we are very much in favour of it
because we see the potential advantage to the citizen of being
able to deal with a single official rather than having to deal
with numerous agencies. We also see advantages from the point
of view of our members in terms of the role that is being asked
of them which is very much more a supportive, encouraging type
of role instead of perhaps in the past a too narrow a focus on
whether people were entitled to benefits and that being the end
of the story. From those two perspectives we are very much in
favour of the broad thrust of it.
Mr Pond
149. If I can address this to the PCS because
you are the organisation representing the people in the front
line in each of those departments, and then perhaps Pat and Richard
would like to add something to this. Firstly to PCS: you are an
organisation of so many different amalgamations that you must
feel you are swimming in alphabet soup sometimes. It does mean
that you now have a very broad remit. In your submission you say
you "fully support the concept of joined up Government and
the one-stop shop..". Is it the case in your experience that
it is possible, given the different cultures in the different
agencies and departments, to achieve the one-stop shop without
too much grating of those different cultures?
(Mr Churchard) There are two questions really. One
is the possible difference between the cultures within the two
Civil Service agencies who are the main players, the Employment
Service and the Benefits Agency, and then perhaps the difference
between the cultures represented by the traditional Civil Service
approach to things and local government, who are also major partners
in this project. I do not think we see too many cultural differences
in terms of bringing together staff in the two Civil Service agencies
and also the CSA which is part of the picture. I do not think
that is going to be a major problem. There are potential difficulties
with integrating different approaches between the Civil Service
and local government, although it is difficult to say precisely
what they might be. They might involve, for example, a somewhat
different approach to the client given the type of benefits that
local government deal with compared to the ones being dealt with
by civil servants. I think that is why it is very helpful to have
some substantial pilot projects here and there is an opportunity
for these things to be exposed and if there are serious problems
they can be addressed before the next stage is reached. I do not
know whether my colleagues want to add anything specifically about
the interface between Civil Service and local government or indeed
between their own two agencies.
(Mr Bonner) I do not think that it should be a problem.
In both agencies there is a history of adapting to deal with the
demands of the Government of the day and to make sure that what
is delivered is what is asked of the agencies. There is a lengthening
period of closer working relationships between the Employment
Service and the Benefits Agency. I think if the framework is right
in the first place and there is a willingness for it to happen
and the resources are available, which is always a factor, I do
not there are any fundamental cultural problems that should cause
us great difficulty.
150. What about the practical problems, again
asking Alan and his team because you are the people at the front
line on these issues? This is going to try to deal with quite
a wide range of issues: benefit entitlement, information about
employment training, tax credits, etc. Is it working in a practical
sense as far as you are concerned?
(Mr Churchard) Again, I think we will find out as
part of the exercise of doing the pilots. If there are some potential
problems the pilot will identify those, and I guess you are quite
familiar with them, the technology and the question of exchanging
data between the agencies and then there is the issue of staff
training because we are going to be asking civil servants on the
front line and also local government officials on the front line
to have a much broader understanding of the scope of the benefits
system. There are difficulties there and there are others which
we have highlighted. I do not think any of these problems are
insuperable. Perhaps the most difficult is going to be the technology
at the end of the day because ultimately we cannot do what we
are doing in the pilots which is recording things manually and
then having them put into the different agencies' different IT
systems. That is manageable in a pilot, but I do not think it
is a basis for regulating things in a joined-up way in the long
term.
151. Are you satisfied that sufficient attention
is being paid to the technology issue or are you flagging up for
us the cause for concern that you have?
(Mr Churchard) I have to hold my hands up in a sense
and say I am not entirely clear, perhaps my colleagues are more
clear, as to what the long-term plans of the various agencies
involved are. It may be that their thinking is not highly developed
at this stage. Clearly, as with other issues, they are hoping
to learn things from the pilots. I do not know if any of my colleagues
have more information than that. My impression is that there are
no detailed plans at the moment as to how this is going to be
dealt with in the long term.
(Mr Bonner) I think that is right, there are no detailed
plans and I think it will be a big issue. Putting together the
Employment Service and the Benefits Agency computer systems would
be a reasonably major task on its own. Then you have to add in
the local authority computer systems which are not compatible
with each other never mind with the central government ones. Clearly,
there would have to be a fair amount of commitment and resource
willed if you are to deliver the kind of computer system which
would be necessary, although I think our view would be that whilst
it would be expensive in the short term, it almost certainly would
be worthwhile in the long term.
(Mr Wylie) One of the problems that they identified
in the Lewisham prototype was the problem of IT and of local authorities'
systems talking to Benefits Agency and Employment Service systems.
The evaluation report from that prototype flags up IT as a potentially
significant barrier to effective closer working.
152. Perhaps the Chairman will allow me just
to see if Richard and Pat have any comments on any of those issues.
(Mr Exell) We have got some past experience to refer
to with the one-stop shop experiment a few years ago. I think
one of the lessons from that is that you need to get the preparation
right to make sure that you do not spend time dealing with problems
as they emerge once you have started implementing. In all these
things it is the advanced preparation that makes the difference.
There were particular problems that were picked up by the evaluation
of the one-stop shop, especially about staff feeling that they
needed to know every aspect of an individual's claim, which meant
that there was a danger of becoming Jack-of-all-trades, master
of none and that had a knock-on impact for workloads, clearance
times and so on. If you think that the Gateway is going further
than a one-stop shop, which was essentially an experiment in one-stop
in determining benefit eligibility (and this is a whole new range
of tasks which is something that you may want us to come back
to later on), that suggests that it is right to have pilots to
start off the introduction of the Gateway, but, even so, the lessons
from the pilots will not be understood unless what we are trying
to do has been thought out. The Gateway will not be able to address
all the problems that an individual benefit claimant faces and
so working out what it is reasonable for the Gateway to address
is going to be a major task here and then working out what are
the communication difficulties following on from that. For instance,
if it is decided that it is not reasonable for the Gateway to
address the health problems of an individual then we do not need
to think through communications with GPs and so on, but, on the
other hand, it is clear from what the Government is saying that
they are thinking about addressing Housing Benefit and in that
case it probably is going to be necessary to address other housing
issues that may be Welfare to Work barriers for claimants. Staff
are going to need training in what sort of housing problems may
be stopping the people they are working with from getting into
work, who has the expertise locally in helping people get round
these problems, who are the other statutory agencies they are
going to need to liaise with and any consequent problems, especially
with information technology. We can look forward to having some
immediate gains just from co-location. If we had a Gateway without
co-location we might end up with the worst of all possible worlds
here. We still have offices in different parts of the borough
that people are having to traipse between and at the same time
we are trying to join up the local and national government issues
in those offices. The communication for the client and for the
officials is going to be particularly difficult. On the other
hand, if we are offering that range of services on the same site
to people, even if there is not much gain from the rest of the
Gateway, the simple one place rather than one-stop would be something
of an advantage.
Mr Healey
153. Richard, you talked about the importance
of the preparation for this and the importance of learning the
lessons from it. These pilots were sprung as an idea in October
1998 in the White Paper. The first wave of pilots were up and
running in June, which is less than nine months. To what extent
is the timescale for getting the pilots going adequate and to
what extent do we need three years in which to learn the lessons
from the pilots?
(Mr Exell) Three years could be adequate. If we are
going to learn how a Gateway can help people who are either unemployed
or getting into work we need to have a couple of cohorts going
through. So if you think of perhaps a year in which it is bedding
down and then a year after that to see how the bedded down system
has worked and then at the end of the third year being able to
see how people have gone through, three years is probably about
the right amount of time. If we stretch it out any more then there
is a danger that other events will have caught up with you, other
government reforms. We know there is quite a heavy programme of
government reforms coming in in this area. If we are going to
learn the lessons about the Gateway without having to disentangle
each successive wave of reforms then three years is probably not
too long and not too short. The time for setting up the pilots
is rather shorter, of course. That is something where I do not
have any particular expertise and PCS may be better placed to
answer that.
(Mr Churchard) I think we have already discussed the
scope of this programme which is enormous in terms of the effects
it will have on the benefits system. I think you have got to allow
quite a period of time in order to learn the lessons from pilot
projects before you jump into wholesale changes where, if you
get them wrong, the effects of that will be pretty disastrous.
We have got no problem with a lengthy period of pilot projects,
which is the right way to approach this, we are more concerned
about the speed at which, as you put it, the pilots are up and
running next month and a few months after the original documentation.
One consequence of that speed is that local government will not
be on board the train at the start, they will have to jump on
board some time later when they feel able to. That is going to
have some impact inevitably on the initial phases of the pilot
projects. We would have preferred a little more time to set the
pilots up, certainly the main pilots in the context of the Civil
Service, in order to enable all parties to have been on board
and perhaps for some of the problems to have been sorted out.
Generally speaking we support the idea of having a fairly extensive
pilot because the consequences of getting it wrong are so severe.
154. Can I come on to the nature of the role
of particularly the training that is going to be required for
the Registration and Orientation Officer and the Personal Adviser
role? Briefly, what are the main components of training that these
two specialists are going to require? Also, to what degree are
they going to be different?
(Mr Bonner) In terms of the Registration and Orientation
Officer, the role is one of essentially trying to identify what
the best mix of benefits is for the individuals who are applying.
Currently it is almost a self-selecting process, is it not, you
go into a Jobcentre if you are looking for JSA and you go to the
local authority if you are looking for Housing Benefit?
155. What about the skills they are going to
require and how different are they going to be from the Personal
Adviser skills?
(Mr Bonner) I think the skills they are going to need
are being able to identify where people fall in terms of the benefits
they need to claim whereas the Personal Adviser skills are much
more advice on getting people into work, much more labour market
skills. If you want a reasonably simple division between them,
Registration and Orientation are more benefit related skills,
the Personal Adviser, who will still have to have benefit related
skills, is more concentrated on the labour market issues. Clearly
what we are talking about is quite a vast range of benefits to
be administered under one head. A fairly high level of knowledge
is going to be necessary for both of them.
(Mr Wylie) A lot of the training will depend on where
the individual has come from. If the individual is recruited from
the Benefits Agency they will not require any training in benefits
information and benefits provision but they will require training
in the job market side of the job. If they come from ES they will
only require training in benefits but if they come from local
authorities they will require training in both aspects of the
role. That is quite key because the benefits training is a fairly
intense level of training.
(Mr Churchard) I thought I detected a concern on your
part that it is the nature of the role that is really worrying
you here, not just the technical knowledge that the staff have.
156. It is picking up a point you made about
the advantage of the Single Work-Focused Gateway allowing people
to deal with one official but in fact, actually, there are going
to be at least two involved right at the outset. I am interested
in the issue of whether or not these are sufficiently distinct
roles with distinct skills and whether there is not going to be
a significant overlap between the functions as they are likely
to be carried out between the two officers and whether or not
we ought to be looking perhaps in one of the pilot areas to pilot
the idea of a single officer who meets, greets and advises claimants
in the system?
(Mr Bonner) I understand where you are coming from.
Part of the problem that is being struggled with at the moment
is whilst there are some attractions to that point of view, there
is the question of whether you could really expect a single individual
to have that breadth and depth of knowledge and to apply it on
a consistent basis. There are also work flow issues in terms of
does it make sense to use one individual for that process? One
of the key objectives, as we understand it, is to provide people
with a Personal Adviser who will stay with them for the process,
however long that process may be, and therefore whether or not
that could be done is a good question. As to being tested, that
may well be worth looking at but I must say it is not really an
issue that we have given much thought to, it is very early days
in all these areas at the moment.
157. Finally, if I may ask about the sites.
From the memoranda we have had so far it appears that the majority
of the sites chosen for the pilots, the physical locations, seem
to be ES offices. To what degree do you think in terms of the
way the pilots are shaping up that we have got the right range
of sites?
(Mr Wylie) We would prefer to see more Benefits Agency
sites included in the pilots and that is something that we have
complained about already. There is a predominance in the Employment
Service and very few local authority.
The Committee suspended from 4.35 p.m. to
4.44 p.m. for a division in the House.
Chairman
158. Before I turn to Andrew Dismore, can I
just ask a question of the PCS about whether there is any view
at all, or any suggestion or hint even, that people like pensioners
and carers and other groups outside people concerned directly
with the Single Work-Focused Gateway are going to get left behind,
that there might be to an extent a second class service for those
who are left out while the Government focuses on trying to assist
people out of welfare into work? Is there any sense, any hint,
of any of that that you have noticed in your consideration of
these questions?
(Mr Bonner) Only beyond the fact that the Government
is very precise about who is going to be dealt with within the
Single Work-Focused Gateway and that is primarily the people who
are on income replacement benefits. Many of the people you have
referred to are being covered by New Deal for Partners, people
who are unemployed, and New Deal for Disabled People and all the
rest of it. There is a bit of a different approach towards those
other groups.
159. So you do not think that the quality of
the service for pensioners and the like will suffer as a result?
(Mr Churchard) I do not think we have any evidence
that it will. The emphasis is on work, getting people into work,
if the potential is there as well as the resources to be diverted
into that kind of activity. I do not think we are aware of any
practical effects or any sense in which those concerns are coming
into practice at all.
|
