Examination of Witness (Questions 53 -
59)
WEDNESDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2001
PROFESSOR GARY
CRAIG
Chairman
53. Ladies and gentlemen, may I welcome Professor
Craig, who is Professor of Social Justice at the University of
Hull. Again, many thanks for what is a very perceptive piece of
written evidence. I had actually forgotten about the 1992 Rowntree
Study[12]
that you had done, but being pointed back to that was very helpful
as well. Perhaps the best way to proceed is maybe for you to say
a few opening words, and then we can go straight into questions
on the discretionary fund?
(Professor Craig) Thank you, Chair, and
thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Those of you
who have ploughed their way through this document will know that
the evidence I want to give is based on a detailed historical
study of all the one-off payments schemes that have been operating
in this country since 1934. There have been six such schemes,
and the report covers the first four years of the Social Fund.
The detailed work that I did ended at that point, partly because
I had to move on to other fields of study but also because, I
guess, like many academics, I was tired of banging my head against
a brick wall, at the time. So I am very pleased that there is
now this opportunity to say some things about the Social Fund.
I have been continuing to monitor the Social Fund since 1992,
and, as I say in my small written memorandum, I see nothing which
would alter the fundamental structural critique that I would make.
I just want to say, in conclusion, though, that it seems to me
that there is very little point in discussing the Social Fund
unless one is prepared to address the issue of the adequacy of
benefits, because that is a key issue that comes up time and time
again throughout the whole history of one-off payment schemes.
Mr Thomas
54. Professor, you are a bit of a root and branch
man, are you not, you think the system is so fundamentally flawed
that there is no point taking a sort of halfway house approach?
(Professor Craig) My colleagues were rather surprised
that I came up with a detailed and, I think, workable set of proposals
for the reform of the Social Fund. They thought I would just issue
a one-paragraph statement which said, `It's just completely unworkable,
let's forget about it.' What I have attempted to do, in this detailed
study, is actually propose a scheme which, should a Government
not be prepared to grasp the nettle of the adequacy of benefits,
would at least provide an answer to some of the recurring problems
that the Social Fund represents.
55. Can I deal with just some of those problems.
The lottery effect, the lack of consistency in decision-making;
what do you have to say about those two features?
(Professor Craig) The detailed evidence up till 1992,
which was echoed by the evidence submitted by Family Service Unit,
Children's Society, Family Welfare Association, in 1996, and further
evidence I have seen from the Child Poverty Action Group, suggests
that it is still the case that whether or not you get help does
not actually depend on some objective assessment of need which
is consistent across place, across time and in relation to specific
types of need or specific types of household, it is actually still
enormously variable. And that is the notion of the lottery; someone
in Hendon might get something that somebody in Rugby would not,
on the same day, of the same month, for the same thing.
56. Can I just ask you, on that, this cap, this
budgetary limit on the amount that is available, is that apportioned
on an office-by-office basis?
(Professor Craig) There are allocations, and in the
last year or two the Department has actually given itself the
power to move allocations between offices. I forget which regulation
or direction it is that allows them to do that, but I see that
simply as a management tool. Throughout the history of the Social
Fund, the problem has been to manage inadequate budgets, and I
think all the nuances and regulations and directions that have
been introduced over the last few years are simply directed towards
that goal, of actually ensuring that expenditure does not exceed
allocations. And I think that is the point about discretion, that
discretion is not used in a positive sense to respond to need,
it is used in a negative sense to ensure that the budget is not
overdrawn.
57. You refer a couple of times in your paper
to the disciplinary function of the regulations, by which you
mean, what?
(Professor Craig) I was using that in a rather different
sense. Historically, it is clear that social security has viewed
certain kinds of claimants as deserving and other kinds of claimants
as undeserving, and if one looks at the pattern of payments that
are made, older people and people with disability tend to do rather
better with Community Care Grants, people who are unemployed,
young people, tend to be steered away from them and directed towards
the loans system.
58. So it is entrenched in the system, is it,
that attitude?
(Professor Craig) There is plenty of evidence, from
organisations like Eurostat, to show that the culture and the
attitudes of the British population towards unemployed people
is amongst the most punitive in Europe, and this is reflected
in the social security system.
59. You mentioned, earlier on, that one of the
key sources of controversy, when this scheme was introduced, was
that it might penalise unpopular claimants, which you have referred
to; you are saying that that is actually happening, and has happened?
(Professor Craig) If one looks at the statistical
breakdown of where grants have gone and where loans have gone,
that certainly is the case. If one looks at the issue of ethnicity,
the evidence is rather less conclusive, and this is partly because
the DSS continues to refuse to monitor ethnicity on anything like
an adequate basis, and I think that is a major structural flaw.
But I have done detailed, qualitative studies on the Social Fund,
and it is quite clear that there have both been many instances
of individual racism but also that the Fund itself is structurally
racist in its attitude towards ethnic minorities.
12 Replacing the social fund: a structure for reform,
Joseph Rowntree Foundation/Social
Policy Research Unit, York. Back
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