Memorandum submitted by National Debtline
1. Thank you for inviting National Debtline
to contribute to your inquiry into the standards of delivery by
the DWP of services to minority ethnic customers.
2. National Debtline is a telephone and
email based advice service for people in debt. We cover England,
Wales and Scotland. Advice over the telephone is supported by
a range of self help materials in English. Some of our materials
are available in a variety of community languages via www.multikulti.org.uk
3. We have access to Language Line as a
translation service if required. As part of our service we do
deal with benefits queries. This is part of our role as money
advisers, to highlight ways in which our callers can maximise
their income by claiming all the benefits and tax credits they
are entitled to. We also give advice on dealing with overpayments
of benefit such as whether an overpayment is likely to be recoverable
and if so how to repay it.
4. However, we operate on a self-help basis
which means that callers will receive expert advice on how to
tackle their debts and which benefits they may be able to claim
but we do not interact directly with the DWP. We encourage callers
to contact the DWP themselves and provide them with contact details
and information on benefits in leaflet form but we do not contact
the DWP on a caller's behalf. We can advise on appeals eg when
refused DLA or Incapacity Benefit but cannot attend a tribunal
on a caller's behalf. We would refer to a local welfare rights
agency in this situation if one could be found in the caller's
area.
5. Callers are welcome to contact us as
many times as they wish for on going advice as their situation
changes. However, we are not likely to be able to discover the
outcome of a claim for benefit unless a caller makes the effort
to inform us. As a consequence we do not have first hand experience
of dealing with the DWP ourselves.
6. Common queries include delays in claims
for Housing Benefit, and difficulties with Tax Credit claims.
However, we do not have the monitoring sophistication to identify
if those callers reporting difficulties with their benefit claims
are disproportionately from BME groups.
7. We do not routinely carry out ethnic
monitoring as part of the queries to callers to our helpline.
We have done this experimentally in the past and found that callers
experienced these questions as somewhat intrusive. We do however
commission regular independent surveys of samples of our client
base. An LSE quality of service questionnaire dated October 2002
found the following client base:
| White | 94.3
|
| Mixed | 0.5
|
| Asian or Asian British | 2.6
|
| Black or Black British | 2.6
|
| |
8. We would suggest that by the nature of a telephone
advice service this may deter people with English language difficulties
from phoning for advice. Although we can offer translation via
Language Line, we would seek to refer a caller with English language
difficulties to a local face to face agency which would be best
placed to make any necessary enquires with third parties on that
client's behalf and negotiate with the DWP and creditors as required.
9. We would suggest that face to face welfare rights
agencies that serve inner cities or specific BME communities would
be better placed than ourselves to provide you with the detailed
evidence you seek. Whilst we could provide you with an impression
based on our experience over the years we are not sure how helpful
this would be.
10. I will conclude by saying that it would appear that
given the complexity of the benefits rules in general and the
advent of tax credits and pension credits in particular, anyone
with language difficulties or issues of culture that militate
against seeking advice or claiming their entitlements is disadvantaged
in dealing with the system.
11. We would encourage translation of all leaflets into
as many community languages as possible. The greater challenge
is to ensure adequate distribution of leaflets and posters within
the relevant communities and community organisations.
12. We would support the call for monitoring of DWP customers
as a basis to build on to find out what discrepancies there are
in the experience of BME clients in relation to the outcome of
benefit claims and general DWP standards of service. Even more
worrying is how to monitor those who do not get as far as claiming
in the first place.
Meg van Rooyen
5 February 2004
| 
