Examination of witness (Questions 1-19)
WEDNESDAY 2 MAY 2001
RT HON
MR ALISTAIR
DARLING
Chairman
1. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Can I
open the public session of evidence and welcome the Secretary
of State, Alistair Darling. Secretary of State, we are very grateful
to you for coming, at relatively short notice; we were in a bit
of a hiatus with dates because of the imminence, or otherwise,
of the general election, and it is very good of you to come at
relatively short notice to talk about the departmental structure
and organisation. I wonder, did you have anything you wanted to
say? We have got four or five areas that are pretty obvious, drawn
basically from what is in the Annual Report, and if you wanted
to start by making a short opening statement maybe that would
be very helpful, then we can go into the areas of cross-examination.
(Mr Darling) Thank you very much, and
I am always glad to submit myself to a Select Committee, especially
in such splendid surroundings, which are more reminiscent of a
court than they are of the committee rooms across in the Commons;
and I see we have been very accommodating in allowing you to meet
in the Grimond Room, as a nod to the Liberal Chair of this Committee,
and you will see I am wearing a yellow tie, as a further nod in
your direction. I think the best way to spend this hearing, obviously,
is to deal with your questions and your comments, but I just wanted
to make the general point that, I think, over the last four years,
we have laid the foundations for quite a major change in the social
security system, it is moving away from, essentially, a system
designed to make payments of benefits in a passive way, offering
very little help to people to become independent, to become self-sufficient.
In my view, we inherited a situation where we were not doing nearly
enough to help the people who were never going to be able to work,
people who are severely disabled, many pensioners who were living
in poverty, and we have changed that over the last four years.
We have a massive programme of reform ahead of us, we have the
Integrated Child Credit, which will come in from 2003, we have
the Pension Credit, coming in in the same year, we have the Child
Support Agency reforms which will come in from April next year,
and, of course, we have to replace our entire IT system, a process
which we have already started, but which will increase steadily
over the next two to three years, which will, of course, enable
us to offer a far better service to the public. And, crucially,
of course, which is something which has always been of concern
to this Select Committee and to the House generally, to increase
our accuracy and our general business performance rates. Finally,
on top of all that, we are in the process, which is some way down
the line now, of substantially reorganising the DSS, it is now
far more focused on the public, on its customers, than ever it
was four years ago, and I think the public will see, over the
years to come, a steady improvement. So we have made a good start,
we have laid the foundations, we have a massive programme which
we must deliver in the next Parliament, but I think the Department
is in a better shape now to do that. And, of course, crucially,
what we will be judged on is the outcomes, what it is that we
do for people, eradication of child poverty, ending pensioner
poverty, helping people get into work as well as providing greater
help for those who cannot, it is on that that we will be judged;
but I think we are in a far better state to deliver that now than
the Department was four years ago.
2. Thank you for that. One of the things that
I should have said perhaps at the beginning, because it is an
appropriate time in the cycle to say it, is that we are extremely
grateful for the assistance that we get from your professional
staff, not just the liaison staff who co-operate between ourselves
and the Department but all the staff that we come across in the
Department in our visits throughout the year. We are extremely
grateful for the help that we get, because they go out of their
way, and they do extremely good work, in sometimes quite difficult
circumstances. And, just as a matter of courtesy, we would like
to ask you to reflect that, in any way you can, in the course
of your work, because I think it is important that we have good
relations and keep good relations with the Department; we are
grateful for that. And, secondly, the Annual Report, just in passing,
this is obviously a document that is a bit in transition, because
we are now working with resource accounting, and it is harder
to understand because it is a different system; but this does
not make it quite clear, to me, anyway, just exactly how the benefit
spend is deployed. Now I think that you have answered some written
Parliamentary Questions recently, perhaps pointing up how the
benefit spend is actually deployed, in terms of the information
that is in the Annual Report, maybe you could say a bit about
that.
(Mr Darling) Yes. I will deal with your first point,
first, if I may. I am grateful for what you say about the staff,
and I think it is important that all Members, particularly members
of the Select Committee, should be able to talk to staff, they
should visit Benefits Agency offices, the Child Support offices,
because it is very easy to knock public service, but the fact
is that in the DSS we employ something like 88,000 people, most
of whom are engaged in front-line service with the public. There
have been good increases in performance, I am thinking of the
Child Support Agency, for example, which has seen quite a significant
turnaround from where it was to where it is now, and that is due,
to a very, very large extent, to the efforts of the staff, not
just senior staff but, of course, staff on the front line; so
I think they deserve support and recognition, which I think is
something that is long overdue. And, obviously, the staff that
you deal with, the Committee, tend to be staff in and around Richmond
House, and they are very happy to talk to you, formally and informally.
On the departmental report, as the Committee will know, the entire
Government is moving to resource accounting, which I think will
be better, in terms of showing the true cost of Government, if
you like, rather than the older way. As you say, I was concerned,
that the resource accounting has many benefits, however it was
not quite so clear as to how much we spent in cash terms and benefits,
year on year, and I think that information, which we hold internally,
is something that ought to be in the public domain. So I answered
a Parliamentary Question yesterday, I think it was, and that additional
information is now there, which would enable someone to make a
comparison between this year, last year and past years. I will
need to reflect on what we do in the future, because, quite clearly,
you cannot have a situation where the Government moves onto resource
accounting except for the DSS, which accounts for a third of Government
spending, and it carries on, in the old sense, and that is not
possible. I do think resource accounting will give greater transparency
as to how much we spend in each of the client groups, which is
something that I think is long overdue; but I will reflect on
how we make sure that information is available so people can make
meaningful comparisons. What I would say to you is, and I think
this is an important point, that social security spending now
is growing at an annual rate of 1.4 per cent, which is the lowest
rate in any Parliament since the second world war; and, indeed,
if we had not increased spending on pensions and on families with
children then social security spending would be going down, in
real terms, for the first time ever. And I think that shows, firstly,
that we are getting far tighter control over social security spending
than we have had in the past, but also, when you consider that
we are spending £4 billion less this year and next year on
unemployment than we had been, and that money therefore is available
to spend on pensioners and on families with children, I think
that shows the success of this Government's policies, underpinned
by a strong economy, making the reforms of the New Deal and making
work possible, making work pay, it is now beginning to reap dividends.
It is allowing us to do far, far more for people who were neglected
in the past, particularly some whom I think probably you will
want to come on to during the course of today's hearing. But,
I think, if people were looking for evidence, is welfare reform
working, yes, it is working and it is beginning to bear fruit.
3. That is reassuring; if you are willing to
look at how the benefit spend is reflected in the Annual Report,
I think that is encouraging. I know these things are difficult,
but I do not think that these departmental reports are as transparent,
you have to be really quite expert, and an accountant, to be able
to get as much information as I think we would like from the Annual
Report.
(Mr Darling) That criticism can be made of the old
accounts as well; pouring over the accounts is not everybody's
cup of tea. But I do think that they should be presented in such
a way that not just managers but people like yourselves, Select
Committees, who are there to hold Departments to account, can
actually look at them and draw a conclusion from them. Now I think
resource accounting has many, many benefits, I think it is a better
way for the Government to account for how it spends public money,
but what we need to be sure is that we can give the public, and
therefore the House, figures that will allow it to make its own
deductions as to where the Government is going and where the money
actually is being spent, and this Department does spend a third
of all Government spending, it is therefore very important that
people should know where it has gone.
4. That is very helpful, thank you for that.
Can I turn now to the structure and organisation of the Department.
There is a lot of speculation about where the current reforms
into the different client groups will end, and whether actually
it will undermine the necessity to have a coherent, independent,
free-standing Department at all. Of course, we understand, as
a Committee, that these matters, the construction of Government
are a matter for the Prime Minister, but to what extent is the
Department planning further change beyond that which is announced,
in terms of moving into the pensions agency, the working families'
agency and the children's side of things; what is the working
assumption for the immediate future within the Department on these
matters?
(Mr Darling) As you rightly say, machinery of government
decisions are a matter for the Prime Minister, and I am not going
to speculate on them. I can understand why people speculate on
them at this particular time but I am not going down that road.
What I can do though, I think, is set out the rationale for the
changes that we have made in the Department, some of which we
touched on last year, I recall, to explain why we are doing it.
The starting-point, when I became Secretary of State, three years
ago, was that I was pretty clear that there were two fundamental
problems with the Department. One was external, that I do not
think it was properly focused on its client groups, on its customers,
essentially it was organised round benefits systems, and there
are many of them, it was not focused on outcomes, what it was
trying to do for children, what it was trying to do for people
of working age or for pensioners. And, I think, internally, as
I said before, problems like inherited SERPS were almost bound
to happen, because of the Byzantine structures within the Department,
there were too many autonomous empires, the Benefits Agency was
actually bigger than the DSS and was in a position where it was
beginning to second-guess what Ministers of all Governments have
decided, and it just was not a very good way of running things.
And then, of course, as part of that, when we started doing comparisons
between DSS and outside organisations, or even Government Departments,
we seemed to employ an awful lot more people than they did at
the centre, which seemed to me to be unjustified. So what I have
done over the last three years is systematically to divide the
Department into three, to reflect its three main client groups,
children, people of working age and pensioners; and, of course,
as you will know, as part of the exercise, we also slimmed down
the centre. I think a year ago I said that we hoped to move 3,000
posts away from the central headquarters and redeploy resources
to put more people in the front line; now, so far, as of 31 March,
we have actually reduced the number by 2,700, the remainder will
be transferred in the next few weeks. So that has been quite a
major reorganisation within the Department and has allowed more
money to go into front-line activities. So that was a useful exercise
in itself. The Department is now so organised that there are these
three distinct divisions, and that process is largely complete,
as far as the management is concerned. What still has to happen
is, of course, the change in the IT systems. Perhaps I can come
back to IT in a moment, because I think that is something you
wanted to ask me separately about. But suffice it to say, at this
stage, the Department essentially is built around Income Support,
that was its main product line, if you like; that will change,
because, clearly, we are changing the benefits, the working age
benefits and pensioner benefits will look very different in three
to four years' time, with the Pension Credit and the initiatives
we have got to help make work pay. So what you will have is the
Department operating in the three different divisions, not just
in policy terms but in organisational terms as well. I do think
that when people talk about machinery of government, or the architecture
of Whitehall, they should not lose sight of the fact that, yes,
it is important, to the extent the system has got to work, but
what actually people will judge any Government on is where it
actually delivers and its outcomes, and I do not think the nation
would mourn if there were not a DSS, they would be more concerned
about, "Is there help to get me into work?", is there
more money going to pensioners, are we increasing child benefit.
Now how we organise these things is really, as I say, a matter
for the Prime Minister anyway, but I think the DSS is now organised
in such a way that it is far better placed to deliver the sorts
of services that I think the public want than it was in the past.
And, of course, if you look at working age, we are in the process
now of bringing together the Benefits Agency and the Employment
Service into the new organisation, which is branded Jobcentre
Plus, which is designed to give all the services through one door
to people of working age. In parallel, the Pensions Service is
also being established, to provide not just service for today's
pensioners, like Minimum Income Guarantee, or Winter Fuel Payment,
but also pension policy generally. And, as I said to you last
year, we are working with the Revenue on the Integrated Child
Credit, and the Child Benefit Centre will move to the Revenue
at some point, so that you have got an integrated flow of services
and cash to children. So that organisation is complete. I think
what you are getting, as a result of that, is, you will get a
better focus on outcome, and, crucially, you will get a far tighter
control of management and of the way in which the service is delivered;
and I think that in itself has merit, never mind what might or
might not happen in the future.
5. That is all very helpful. But what about
the bits that do not fit naturally into the client groups, the
Social Fund and the Disability and Care Directorate and the Child
Benefit Centre; have decisions been taken about where they will
fit in the jigsaw yet?
(Mr Darling) So far as the disability benefits are
concerned, remember, DLA and AA are operated by a distinct unit
anyway, so the unit is still housed in the Department, but it
does not affect the delivery of those benefits; and, frankly,
my priority there is to make sure that we administer them far
more effectively than we do at the present time. Incapacity Benefit
is a working age benefit, that is part of the working age side
of things, so that would be administered by Jobcentre Plus; and,
Social Fund, it will be divided, because most of the Social Fund,
actually, goes to people of working age, so it will be administered
there, but also there will still be a need for the Social Fund
for older people, so it will be divided. But, essentially, what
you will have is, working age benefits will be delivered by Jobcentre
Plus and the pension benefits will come through the Pensions Service.
But, as I say, the disability benefits, which are very, very important
to a large number of people, some people who need a great deal
of help and support, it is free-standing anyway, and I think the
main priority there, as I say to you, most people actually could
not care who `owns' it, if you like, or which Secretary of State
answers questions about it, what they are more concerned about
is the quality of service. And, recently, you have taken an interest
in what goes on in Blackpool, quite rightly so, and my priority
there is to sort that out and make sure that we can improve the
services that we provide there.
6. Thank you. Can I ask just one or two questions
about staff pay and conditions, because you said yourself, I think
when we had a joint meeting with yourself and the Secretary of
State for Education, that it was important to end staff uncertainty.
Are you sure that you have managed to get these messages, and
you have got a coherent line that you have just explained to us,
and that is all understandable, but are the staff being carried
along with this, are you certain that they are not being left
with some doubt about where their own future lies?
(Mr Darling) We have devoted considerable time and
energy to making sure that staff are kept informed and that they
know what we are doing. The Chief Executive designate of Jobcentre
Plus, Leigh Lewis, whom I think you will have come across from
his time at the Employment Service, writes to staff regularly,
telling them of the progress that we are making; and, really,
since his appointment, just after the turn of the year, we have
made quite substantial progress in the work that is going to be
necessary to start to bring the two organisations together. As
you will know, we are planning to set up just over 50 Pathfinder
offices from this October, that will gradually be rolled out,
and the managers for these offices are being appointed in the
next six weeks or so. So we are keeping staff informed. Clearly,
if you ask staff in the offices what is their concern, their concern
naturally will be, "Well, where do I fit into all this?".
Now what we are doing is we are consulting with them and their
representatives, but we are confident that we can make a smooth
transition so that staff will be allocated between the Jobcentre
Plus and the Pensions Service over the next year or so. Bear in
mind that we pay out benefits for 17 million people a week; we
must make sure we have got continuity of service, that is very,
very important. We are making massive changes, which I referred
to, all of which require a lot of time and effort on the part
of staff, and at the same time we are reorganising things, but
it is important we keep staff involved and we are doing that.
Just one thing, to answer a question you did not ask, but since
you mentioned staff morale, I was just looking at—
7. That was the next question, yes?
(Mr Darling) If you look at the staff turnover, which
is indicative of how the state of the nation is, if you like,
it is interesting that, the Benefits Agency, the turnover is just
over 5 per cent, which is what you would expect in an organisation
of that size. But the Child Support Agency, which is a body that
has an awful lot of criticism and an awful lot of difficulties,
is going through major change at the moment, a real restructuring,
with a new Chief Executive, there are different business processes,
it has got new computer systems coming in, an entirely new system
from next April, and so you would expect there to be a lot of
uncertainty there, and yet, whereas the staff turnover in the
year to April 1999 was nearly 28 per cent, last year it was down
to 14.5 per cent. Now that shows what you can do with good management,
taking staff, explaining what the new system is going to do, better
organisation, it makes a big, big difference; and, within that
CSA figure, actually, if you look at the different offices, a
lot of the offices actually are doing a lot better than that.
So I think that any staff, anywhere, will always tell you that
management could be better, but we are devoting far more attention
to better management, and that is delivering better results. When
the Jobcentre Plus is set up, of course, and you were asking about
staff conditions, as I said to you before, and as David and I
said to you when you had your joint meeting last year, Employment
Service and Benefits Agency terms and conditions are different;
clearly, they are having to be brought together because it is
not sustainable to have an organisation where you have got people
doing the same job on different terms and conditions. That process,
negotiations and discussions are going on at the moment.
8. Improving staff morale is an important issue
for us. It would be helpful, I think, actually, to consider, if
you are thinking about new ideas for inclusion in Annual Reports
in the future, that things like staff turnover figures, over a
period of time should be included, I agree it is the management
trends that are important, actually would be helpful to know,
and I do not think there are actually any turnover figures in
the Annual Report, as it is currently?
(Mr Darling) I am happy to include something along
these lines, because it could be helpful. Remember, there are
other things that can distort things as well. I think the CSA
is a well-run organisation, a lot of effort has gone into it,
but one of the things that there is nothing you can do about is
that if a new finance company moves in next-door to your CSA office
and offers cheap mortgages, a pound or two more, and nice plants
round the room and people not complaining, then it is difficult
to keep staff. But what I would say is, one thing that strikes
me, as you go round the country, you meet people who have worked
for the DSS and its agencies and its predecessors for 20 or 30
years, and they work there because they have chosen to work in
the public service and they like working for it, despite all the
difficulties, and sometimes people who have been sitting there
in the front line, at the counter, which is not the easiest place
to be on a Monday morning, and they have done it. Even in places
like Edinburgh, which is full of the financial services industry,
who pay well, wonderful conditions, you meet people there who
say, "I have chosen to work for the public service and I
want to do that," quite rightly, they want to be rewarded
for having done that, but the staff loyalty is extremely high.
And, as I say, I do attach considerable importance to improving
staff morale, and that is why I mentioned the Child Support Agency,
because that, in many ways, represents what was wrong with the
system in the past, not enough time and attention being given
to the laws that we pass, the systems that its staff were supposed
to operate, the way in which the staff were treated. That is being
turned round, and it is part of the systematic improvement that
I think you are seeing within the whole Department. We have got
more to do, mind you.
9. I confirm that, that when we went to Blackpool
I was certainly very deeply impressed by the commitment of the
staff, although I have to say that some of the management, and
we are talking about kind of middle management people, some of
the management loads that were being carried by some of these
young people were fantastically high, it seemed to me, for the
amount of money that they were being paid. Now I notice, and I
am interested, that in the Annual Report you say, in response
to one of the PAC questions that was addressed to you, recommendations
about retaining staff, that you have moved to, I think, annual
payments, of, I think, £1,500, to try to secure key staff.
(Mr Darling) Yes.
Chairman: Is it not time really to look fundamentally,
and I know that there is a lot going on, and if management change
is too quick and severe then it can risk becoming incoherent,
but is there not a case for doing a pretty fundamental review
of staff pay and conditions? Some of these people that we met
in Blackpool, in particular, I think, are not getting paid enough,
to be honest. Maybe that is an easy thing for us to say, but I
think that there may well be a case—
Mrs Humble: I have to agree with him on this,
I have to say.
Chairman
10. This was an idea that was put into my mind
by Mrs Humble. But going on and listening to the management loads
that they carry and the work that they do and the pay that they
get, it is not surprising that they are tempted by incoming financial
institutions, or indeed incoming MacDonald hamburger bars, maybe,
even. Is there not a case now, once you get a chance to get these
new client group managerial arrangements bedded down, for having
some kind of fresh look at the way that the pay and conditions
for the whole Department are actually conducted, to reflect the
responsibilities that some of these key members of staff are carrying
at the moment?
(Mr Darling) As you know, every year the Department
enters into negotiations with staff representatives, and over
the years we have tried to recognise where we need to improve
things. For example, on the CSA, last year, I think it was, the
Department recognised that something had to be done about the
CSA pay, because of the retention problem, and we did. Now you
mentioned the £1,500 payment, it is too soon to say whether
that has worked, because it only started in January, and I think
I am right in saying the staff would not have seen the benefit
until the end of March, and so it is early days yet. I also said
to you that, as part of building up Jobcentre Plus, we have to
review pay and conditions, because, as I say, the ES and the BA
conditions are different. So all that work is continuing. And
the other thing we are doing, of course, is, in each business
unit, asking ourselves whether or not we can improve the way in
which people are expected to work; and pay is very important to
everybody, for perfectly obvious reasons. But one of the things
that undoubtedly will help staff morale and their enthusiasm for
work is the conditions under which we expect them to work. The
new IT, the Early Office infrastructure, the front end, will start
to come into offices from July, and so, for the first time ever,
our staff will be working on IT equipment of the sort you would
expect and take for granted anywhere else, and the old green writing
on the black screens will disappear. Also, the Benefits Agency,
for example, is paying particular attention to the performance
in some offices where there has been low morale, very high rates
of inaccuracy in benefits, absenteeism, and so on; the evidence
is that when you put in a good manager and start to address some
of the business systems and the conditions of work you get a much
better and happier staff. Now these are management responsibilities.
Now I accept that pay and conditions are always a matter of concern
to staff, I have lots of meetings with staff up and down the country,
I make a point of doing that every couple of months, or so, it
is always raised, and I always say to them, "We will do our
best, although, clearly, I'm not in a position to promise `don't
worry, suddenly there's going to be lots and lots of money',"
the Government has got to keep an eye on its pay-bill. But we
do want to treat our staff fairly and we will treat them fairly.
Mr Thomas
11. On the question of pay structure throughout
the public sector, I am glad that you made the comment that you
strive for some degree of parity within the public sector. One
of the things I picked up, I am not sure whether other members
of this Committee did, on various visits to various offices, was
the apparent disparity between salary levels and levels of responsibility
within the Benefits Agency and CSA and the Inland Revenue. Do
you perceive that as an issue; and, if you do, would you have
any proposals for dealing with that disparity?
(Mr Darling) I think that, on levels of responsibility,
yes, they are all different, and even in the Benefits Agency,
the way in which its business is conducted, there are disparities,
which are gradually being addressed, because I think it is difficult
to justify. The Revenue pay more than the Benefits Agency, which
presumably is why, when we transferred the Contributions Agency
to the Inland Revenue, after a week's complaints then I think
the next complaint was, "Why can't we go next week?",
I am aware of that. I am not arguing for, nor am I promising,
parity; what I do say is that, clearly, you do have to make sure
that what you pay staff is acceptable and that it is defensible.
But I think I am right in saying that there always have been differences
between various organisations, and what we have to do is to make
sure that what we have got on offer, for example, if you look
at the Benefits Agency, we offer far more flexible working than
some other organisations, which suits mothers with children, for
example, and we do try to balance these things up; but, obviously,
the Government, if you look at what we are offering our staff,
year on year, we do try to be fair, that we do try to deal with
anomalies, we try to deal with discrepancies. But I do not think
that anyone is in a position to say that there will not always
be people who will say, "You ought to be doing more than
that."
12. Yes, but on the specific point of the Inland
Revenue?
(Mr Darling) Yes, and the Revenue do pay more; as
I say, in general terms, they do pay more than the Benefits Agency,
though there are other compensatory factors which also need to
be taken into account. But, as I say to you, if you look across
the public service, I do not think there has ever been a position
where there is parity, so that you can say that person, no matter
where they work, will always be earning the same amount of money,
and that has never been the case and I do not think it ever will
be.
Mr Thomas: Thank you.
Mrs Humble
13. First of all, can I say how pleased I am
to hear you say that you are consulting with staff and keeping
them informed about all the changes that are taking place, because
that is very important in a period of change that obviously affects
staff morale, given the uncertainty and people wanting confirmation
of where they are going to slot into this new system. Part of
the uncertainty revolves around the Jobcentre Plus scheme, and
is it going to commence when the Pathfinder schemes get off the
ground in October, or do you see it being launched officially
when the Department does actually formally split and the Benefits
Agency goes and the Employment Service goes? Can you give us any
idea of a timescale that you are looking at, from commencement
through to completion, of this changeover?
(Mr Darling) As I said to you, the 50 Pathfinder offices
will start operations from October this year, and then we will
gradually convert BA and ES offices into Jobcentre Plus offices.
We are not yet in a position to make an announcement as to the
date on which Jobcentre Plus will formally take over from BA and
from ES; as you will appreciate, there is an awful lot of work
to be done. Basically, you are dealing with over 120,000 people,
you are dealing with a system that has something like in excess
of 24 different computer systems, you have managements that were
designed at different times, doing different things. A lot of
work is going on at the moment, but I hope in the not too distant
future that we will be in a position then to say the date on which
Jobcentre Plus and the Pensions Service, because they will both
come into existence at the same time, will take over from the
BA and the ES. We are keeping staff informed. Remember, one of
the things we will have to do, before we can make that formal
announcement, is we will have to be pretty certain exactly which
staff are going where, because from that date they will be employed
by and answerable to a new organisation. So all that work, which
has been going on over the last few months, from the time that
David and I spoke to you last summer, is going on, and I attach
more importance to getting it right and making sure it works than
announcing a date which might not have any meaning. But I repeat
this point, that we are trying to keep staff informed. I do understand
that staff will always say, "Why can't you tell me everything
that I need to know?". It is a massive organisation, changing
all these things round, and we will keep staff informed. But a
lot of the people in Blackpool who work in the DLA, for example,
which I know you have a particular and obvious concern about,
that centre is free-standing, and whilst some of the changes will
affect them, to a large extent their work will continue because
the need to administer those benefits will continue. There are
other people, of course, on the Fylde Coast generally, who will
be involved very directly because they will go either to the Pensions
Service or to Jobcentre Plus, as the case may be, because a lot
of the support systems for the entire DSS, as you know, are based
there.
14. It is a major employer, Chairman, of my
constituents, the DSS, which is why I am concerned about staff
morale, etc.
(Mr Darling) It is very, very important. In an organisation
like the Benefits Agency, and the Employment Service, for that
matter, an awful lot depends on the staff, it is not an automated
process; getting people into work, for example, can never be a
completely automated process. But I think what I detect, over
the last three years, is that staff can see signs of improvement.
Now one of the biggest things that helped staff morale, actually,
was when they saw that there was money allocated, at long last,
to replace their IT systems. I was in an office in the East Midlands
yesterday, and I was just struck again by the vast amount of paperwork
that our staff have to fill in, because it is not automated; now
from July it will start to be automated, and I think staff say
they can see light at the end of the tunnel. One of them said
to me, "It will be so nice to be in work, operating on the
same standard of IT equipment as my child does at school."
Now the fact that, over the years, our staff were expected to
work on stuff that is now getting on for obsolete is an indictment
on the years of failure to invest; we are turning that round.
But clearly we want to make sure that we keep the staff informed,
to make sure we take staff with us, because without the staff
support it would be virtually impossible to deliver the service.
15. And one of the exciting initiatives that
staff in the DSS have seen when they look at colleagues in the
Employment Service has been the New Deal, has been the introduction
of Personal Advisers, and so they are very keen to have part of
that action for themselves, and, therefore, bringing Personal
Advisers into the Jobcentre Plus scheme is something that they
are very much looking forward to. But can you perhaps clarify
the role of Personal Advisers within the new Jobcentre Plus; will
the Personal Adviser simply be doing an initial interview and
looking at the benefits claim, well, that new individual, however
they are going to be titled, the claimant, within the new scheme,
and offering them advice at that initial interview, or will the
Personal Adviser continue through and have further meetings, as
and when necessary, with a particular individual, and will that
be appropriately funded?
(Mr Darling) The answer is, it will depend on the
individual; every member of the public is different. There are
some people who can come in through the door, who perhaps were
made redundant, who have got plenty of skills and who will get
into work very quickly, and it may be that a very short interview
with a Personal Adviser is all that is required, perhaps to tell
someone what their entitlement is, what they need to do to keep
their National Insurance contributions up, and they can match
them with a job fairly quickly. There are others who need quite
significant levels of help, and they will need not just an initial
interview but they will need subsequent help along the road, and
some people even after they get into work. The American experience
is that once you have been in work for a while you often get a
crisis and you need some continuing support. So it will depend
on the individual. But if you look at the Pathfinder projects,
for example, in the 50 offices, or so, that Jobcentre Plus will
be rolled out from this October, the Personal Advisers there,
as I say, the system is being set up so as to allow them as much
or as little time as they need. Clearly, there is no point in
having somebody in, who is job-ready and is going to work, for
several interviews, it is a waste of everybody's time; for others,
you will need more intensive help. Again, as I say, I was in the
Midlands yesterday and I spoke to one of the lone parent Advisers
and also a lone parent who had just gone into work; now I think
this woman said she needed about three or four meetings to sort
out skills, benefit, and the rest of it, but the lone parent concerned
said how valuable it was to have one person and it was the same
person. And that is one of the things we are moving to, as within
the CSA, so you get the same person, rather than you do not know
who it is, to give them that continuing support. The last thing
I want just to make very clear to you is that when Jobcentre Plus
is set up there will be no distinction as to who came from the
Employment Service and who came from the BA, they are all employed
by Jobcentre Plus; some people will be in the front office, some
will be in the back office. But, as you rightly say, there are
a lot of our staff, who have worked for years, who have always
felt there was something wrong with a system that all they did
was hand out benefit, full stop, rather than say to somebody,
"Look, you could get into work." And, as you know, under
the present system, we have BA staff working in Employment Centres
under the New Deal, and so on, bringing them together, all the
evidence is that the staff think it is far better, therefore that
is reflected in their attitude towards the public, and the public
also think it is better because they go to one place rather than
be sent up and down a high street, or sometimes across a city.
16. I have seen that working very well in my
own constituency with Benefits Agency staff going into local Jobcentres,
and they do value that. But one of the things that the Benefits
Agency staff said to me, and I recently visited Mexford House,
in Blackpool, was that, as part of the discussion about bringing
the Jobcentre Plus on board, within the terms and conditions,
that there is the office layout, there is the difference between
open-plan offices and screens and how the new system will work.
And I recollect having a debate about that when we were looking
at, when we did our report on, the ONE pilots, and I note that
some of the Jobcentre Plus Pathways are in the ONE pilot areas.
Have you learned anything from the ONE pilots that will help you
in implementing this new system, both in looking at the different
pay and conditions, because we raised that in our report, because
there were different pay and conditions not just between Benefits
Agency and Employment Service but also with the local authorities
who were involved? And, of course, some of the pilots are private
and voluntary sector; but I do not think any of the Jobcentre
Plus pilots are going to be in those particular areas. However,
have you had an opportunity to have a look at the ONE pilots and
see what we can learn from that?
(Mr Darling) Yes; there are a couple of issues. So
far as the ONE pilots are concerned, they have been running now
for getting on for two years, they have still got another year
to do, of course; we have learned quite a lot. None of them are
screened; what they do have though is they have got facilities
to see people in a screened environment where that is appropriate.
One of the things that we have learned is that, if you change
the atmosphere in a place, sometimes people's behaviour will change;
and by having appointments, where somebody is seen when they come
in at the set time, you get rid of some of the aggravation of
people who have been sitting for two hours. I was in an office
recently, again in the Midlands, where people had been kept waiting,
frankly, because the management had not organised itself better,
for two hours; it was not surprising that by the time that somebody
got to a screen they were quite hostile. And that is the sort
of thing that we are changing. The ONE pilots are not screened,
and, so far, we have managed to avoid some of the difficulties
that have occurred in other places. I think the other thing on
the ONE pilots that is coming across is that bringing everybody
together is a much, much better way of operating than the way
we used to operate in the past; also they have slightly better
IT, which is useful as well. On the screens, I have made it clear
to staff that we cannot deliver the sort of service we want, under
Jobcentre Plus, of seeing people, taking them through what is
open to them, helping them to get into work, from behind a glass
screen; there are some people where we know there is a risk and
that risk can be dealt with. I said this when you raised this
matter last year. But I was in America a couple of years ago and
I went to an area in New York which was a pretty tough sort of
area and they had taken down their screens and they have not had
any trouble since; what they had done was to lay out the place
a little bit more sensibly, with an appointments system, it was
just better organised, and the staff and the public going in there
said it was better. Now we are discussing with the trade unions,
we are discussing with staff, how to organise things in the future,
but I think most of our staff recognise that we are going to have
to make those changes, and most of them welcome it, provided,
in turn, we make sure there is security in those buildings so
that if anything happens it can be dealt with quickly, and I am
confident that will happen. But clearly we do owe a duty of care
to our staff, to make sure we do not expose them to unnecessary
risks. The last point I would make is the obvious one that we
just need to make sure that we take staff with us and that they
feel that they are being properly looked after, and I think, certainly
in the discussions I have had with staff, they accept that, they
see the need for change and they recognise that, actually, if
you can get a better service you can probably remove some of the
aggravation that has occurred in the past.
Mr Thomas
17. On the new Pensions Service, Secretary of
State, could you tell us when you expect that new agency will
be launched, and will it be launched in one fell swoop, or will
it be a gradual run-in?
(Mr Darling) It will be launched on the same day as
the Jobcentre Plus, as I was saying to Joan just a moment ago,
because, basically, what is happening is we are bringing the Employment
Service together with the Benefits Agency and then we are separating
out the pensions staff into the Pensions Service, and that has
to be done at the same time.
18. When will the Jobcentre Plus set-up be launched?
(Mr Darling) What I said just a few moments ago was
that the Pathfinder offices will start in October, work is going
on at the moment to allocate staff to start the process of disaggregating
the IT systems, and the rest of it; when that work is complete
we will then make an announcement as to the date on which we expect
the BA and the ES to be superseded by Jobcentre Plus and the Pensions
Service. I hope to be able to do that in the not too distant future;
there is a lot of work going on at the moment to allow us to do
that. But, as I said to Joan, one of the exercises that has still
to happen is that staff have to be allocated between the two,
because they will be employed by either the Pensions Service or
Jobcentre Plus, but my intention is that they should start together.
And, the other thing, I repeat again, bear in mind that, on the
pension side of things we deal with both policy as well as delivery,
there are 11 million pensioners and pensioner households and we
have to make sure that we maintain our service to them. So, as
I said, I attach greater importance to making sure we get it right,
rather than fixing a date and finding that that date may be more
academic than real.
19. Can you give us a date?
(Mr Darling) No, I cannot. No, I said in the not too
distant future I shall be able to announce a date, but I cannot
do that at the moment.
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