Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
23 JUNE 2004
MS MAEVE
SHERLOCK, MS
BHARTI PATEL
AND MR
DENG YAI
Q200 Ms Buck: Yes?
Ms Sherlock: The short answer,
is that the numbers of people claiming asylum went up very sharply
in the 1990s. The pressure was so great that what became the determining
factor was overwhelmingly the availability of accommodation. But
if there is lots of empty accommodation somewhere there may be
a very good reason for that. One of the lessons that have to be
learned is that it is not enough. For example, you do not send
people somewhere where there has just been a major economic shock,
or there is massive unemployment, or public services are so strained
that inevitably it becomes a source of contention. You have to
take a more intelligent, view about that, and I think it is much
better than it used to be.
Q201 Mrs Humble: Barriers to employment!
Ms Sherlock: Oh, yes. Sorry.
Q202 Mrs Humble: You talked about unrealistic
eligibility criteria for the training and development programmes.
In using that description were you talking primarily about asylum
seekers, or were you talking about refugees, and what can be done
to make training and employment programmes more easily accessible
to refugees?
Mr Yai: The barriers are well
documented, and there is a DWP report that was produced by Alice
Bloch which outlines in detail the barriers to employment. So
there are a few that we would like to focus on because those are
the ones that affect the majority of refugees. One is lack of
knowledge of entitlements and statutory services, especially those
provided by Jobcentre Plus, a DWP the report of Alice Bloch, for
DWP found that only 49% of refugees had heard of any schemes run
by Jobcentre Plus. Also, refugee participation in Jobcentre Plus
training was very low. Though only 60% of the respondents to the
survey said they were interested in training. So obviously Jobcentre
Plus needs to market its services more to refugees and ensure
that they know their entitlements. But the other issue is lack
of adequate English language, and that is a barrier not only to
training and education but also to employment. It is, in fact,
determining the kind of job that you get and the level of pay
that you also get. The other issue is attitudes of employers.
Some employers do not believe overseas qualifications are good
enough or attach any value to overseas experience, and this is
a major barrier that needs to be tackled. One thing that Jobcentre
Plus can do is to raise awareness of employers of the economic
potential of refugees. The fourth barrier that tends to affect
the majority of refugees is also lack of UK work experience, and
employers demand invariably that people have UK work experience,
and this is extremely difficult for refugees given that there
are less volunteering opportunities in the country. One thing
that Jobcentre Plus can do is to create more opportunities for
work placement. The fifth and also main barrier is unfamiliarity
with UK job surge culture. When I applied for my first job in
the Sudan I wrote an application by hand, walked into the local
council and half an hour later I was sitting at a desk working
as a junior clerk, but in this country it is extremely difficult
and it is more complex than that. One thing that Jobcentre Plus
can do is people with job service skills. One of the findings
of the DWP report is that more people found a job through friends
than any other route, and that was 32% of the sample. So job service
skills will be extremely useful and I think Jobcentre Plus can
help in that respect.
Mrs Humble: Can I ask another question
based on that? In your submission you also talk about cultural
barriers among some communities about selling yourself: telling
people how wonderful you are in order to get the job?
Rob Marris: Politicians know more about
that!
Q203 Mrs Humble: I could not possibly
comment! To what extent is that a real issue, and, if it is a
real issue, how can it be overcome?
Mr Yai: It is a real issue, in
the sense that people are not able to convince themselves to do
it, but it is also about the ability to be able to market yourself,
the ability to be able to master the language and be able to handle
job interviews; but even at an early stage, being able to complete
a job application form, writing an appropriate CV, but also writing
an appropriate supporting statement to be able to reach the interview
stage; but then at the interview stage it is also about being
able to market yourself well, being able to tackle the questions
well, being able to convince the panel that you are the most suitable
candidate.
Q204 Mrs Humble: To what extent is the
DWP liaising with other departments, like the Department for Education
and Skills, in sending people off on training courses to learn
English and to learn exactly these sorts of skills: because certainly
attached to New Deal there are lots of skills training courses
available? Are you finding that refugees, not asylum seekers but
refugees, are being sent on those sorts of courses?
Mr Yai: DWP has got its own courses,
some are part of New Deal programmes, some others are part of
Work-based Learning for Adults, and some of those would teach
job search skills to everybody, including refugees. The problem
with that is that the content of the program will not be appropriate
for refugees because of the cultural differences, because of the
language issues and others that are specific to refugees. But
in terms of liaising between DWP and other government departments,
like the Department for Education and Skills and the Learning
and Skills Councils, I think there is a need for improvement on
that. Obviously the other departments can improve, contribute
to improving the employability of refugees in terms of improving
learning skills, but also the other courses that are provided
by further education colleges, I think, if you approach it as
a team, probably they will improve the employability of refugees
and have better results in terms of job outcomes.
Ms Patel: May I add something?
Q205 Chairman: Before you do that, we
have got 15 minutes left and there are two important areas of
questioning I would like to get through, if you would not mind.
So a little bit more discipline all round and we will get there
comfortably, but let us move on to the next section, if we may.
Q206 Mr Dismore: Following on from where
Joan Humble left off, one of the questions I was concerned about
is whether DWP, following on from what you were just saying, can
show the flexibility but that in practice the bureaucracy prevents,
effectively, the flexibility that you are talking about? Can it
ever get there?
Mr Yai: Can you repeat the question?
Q207 Mr Dismore: You are talking about
working for all these other agencies, and one of the things that
came out of the work we have done in the past, particularly in
relation to the particularly hard to reach groups through, for
example, New Deal, is the question—and I think it is quite
an open question—when you are dealing with people who are
hard to place or who are hard to work with, for a variety of complex
different barriers, like, for example, language and background,
whether the DWP can demonstrate the flexibility it needs to demonstrate
in dealing with that particular individual's circumstances and
requirements, or whether he is better, effectively, to hive that
sort of work off, with appropriate financial resources, to the
voluntary sector who can show a much greater degree of flexibility?
Mr Yai: I think in terms of what
DWP can do, there is a need for flexibility. We are aware of the
fact that some refugee professionals do not get the support they
need from Jobcentre Plus offices, and they tend to be referred
to voluntary sector organisations and other specialists, training
providers, who will then work to support their needs. Take, for
example, doctors. When they go on clinical attachments they are
put under pressure, some have their job-seekers allowance stopped
as a result of being engaged in a full-time clinical attachment
or following a full-time international English language testing
preparatory course, and I think because of that they tend to lose
their benefits. Obviously flexibility is needed in that regard.
It is not only doctors that tend to lose their job-seekers allowance,
but also dentists, nurses, mid-wives as well, and this tends to
affect refugee professionals generally who tend to engage in full-time
re-qualification programmes that will help them to work in the
UK.
Q208 Mr Dismore: I think that is an important
point. In fact, in my own constituency Barnett College have got
a whole course designed to teach medical English to encourage
doctors to go into the NHS. It costs about a quarter of a million
pounds to train a doctor. We are getting doctors quite cheaply
if we are able to achieve that. Looking at the statistics, the
ones I have here are a bit out of date, but looking at the statistics
it does reinforce one of the points that you are making, that
a lot of this goes by word of mouth: because we seem to have a
disproportionate number of Afghan doctors in training. I am not
complaining about the fact, but I know that the Afghan community
is not necessarily the largest refugee community in my constituency,
there are professionals from all over the place. It seems to me
that perhaps they have cottoned on, through the informal networks,
to this particular course. That is something you have identified.
Is that something you welcome or something that needs to be tried
to be addressed in different ways?
Ms Sherlock: One thing it is fair
to say is that informal networks play a very powerful part in
communication. If you think, in a lot of these communities English
language proficiency is limited. It is not surprising that informal
networks will be a very powerful way of communicating things.
It is interesting: even if the Afghans are not the largest refugee
community in your constituency, they may be one of the more recent
ones. One of the down sides—I will not get into it—about
not allowing asylum seekers to work is if you take a number of
years to process someone's claim they let the skills degrade so
much in that time that it is quite hard to help people to get
back up—the path back up is very difficult—whereas
if you have a group community that has come in relatively recently,
if you can intervene early enough and pick them up, you can make
a difference. But, finally, in answer to your earlier point, I
have worked in the past with lone parents and DWP—I have
been out and trained, many years ago, job centre advisers working
with lone parents—and the two things that work are: (1)
the partnership between JCP and voluntary sector agencies to help
them understand things better and to work out when they can do
things better themselves and when they are better to go off and
to frankly farm them out to voluntary agencies. The second thing
that works is targets. After years of appearing before this Committee
and giving evidence, and in a variety of previous roles, in the
end what made the difference in terms of pushing MDRP up and getting
JCP to take lone parents seriously was that all of a sudden they
changed the ranking mechanism and the number of points you got
for getting a lone parent into work went up. Lone parents used
to say to me that once that happened, over night you would walk
into a Jobcentre Plus and it was like having a target painted
on your chest. All of a sudden people were interested in coming
and getting you. JCP is a tremendous target-driven organisation,
therefore the two things that make a difference are (1) them wanting
to do it because it makes enough of a difference to achieving
your targets, and (2) you are getting in touch with your partnership
and those who understand how to do that.
Q209 Mr Dismore: Can we get on to asylum
seekers, refugees, rather.
Ms Sherlock: I mean for refugees.
Sorry.
Q210 Mr Dismore: We are quite short of
time. Can I put another point to you?
Ms Sherlock: I am sorry, I was
talking about refugees on the targets, not about asylum seekers.
I am sorry I did not make that clear.
Q211 Mr Dismore: We have got completely
lost here now. I was going to ask you about the point at which
it is best to try and help refugees, the point at which they need
most help from agencies. The DWP view is when they are first given
permission to remain in the UK. Are the right mechanisms in place
to enable Jobcentre Plus to do that? Is that the right point at
which intervention is necessary?
Ms Patel: I think a lot more needs
to be done to explain the position people are in at this point.
[transition to refugee status] We are talking about people who
have been through the asylum system, which may have taken months
and, in some cases, in excess of a year. In that time, people
will have been completely reliant on support from NASS, and that
is either accommodation, or dispersal accommodation, plus some
support pitched at something like 70% of income support rates,
or, in quite a large number of cases, people will have taken a
cash element of the support from NASS but chosen to remain within
their community. So they will be staying in quite unacceptable
and over-crowded conditions living within the homes of friends
or relatives. The point at which people get recognition, I think
on the whole we are talking about a group of people who will not
have any sort of savings in the bank, they will not have possibly
even the basic essentials, and the decisions that people have
to make at this stage, I think are going to be extremely complex.
They are about a whole range of issues, not just how they are
going to continue to support themselves, but also how they can
secure their independence in terms of finding work, getting their
kids into school, and so on. I think the approach has to be focused,
intensive support to people at this point to get them into an
alternative framework of support. That may be support by helping
them to find work, or it may be support in terms of helping them
to make the transition to a different support framework within
the mainstream benefit system. The RIFCO pilot which is being
undertaken in Harrogate, we would argue—
Q212 Mr Dismore: What is RIFCO?
Ms Patel: Deng, would you like
to explain RIFCO?
Mr Yai: Yes. RIFCO is Refugee
Integration for Career Opportunities. So it is an abbreviation
of that.
Ms Patel: This is a pilot project
that is being undertaken by DWP. It has yet to be evaluated, but
it works on the basis that people will be given that intensive
focused support which looks at their needs, not just in relation
to advice about getting jobs, but also needs in relation to housing
advice, benefits advice. That is the sort of model that we would
advocate in terms of helping people to make an effective transition
from life as asylum seekers to life as UK residents.
Q213 Mr Dismore: One further question.
How do you think Jobcentre Plus can work better with employers
to utilise the skills of refugees?
Ms Patel: I am sorry, could you
repeat the question?
Q214 Mr Dismore: How do you think Jobcentre
Plus can work better with employers in trying to break down the
barriers and ensure that refugees get into work?
Ms Sherlock: Two things they can
do. One would be to help employers to overcome their lack of understanding
of foreign qualifications. That would be a good start. There is
a lot of work, indeed a lot of expertise has gone into looking
at the equivalent qualifications for educational purposes, and
I presume a lot of that knowledge and administrative assistance
could be made available to employers wishing to be able to evaluate
qualifications for a range of purposes as well. Secondly, there
is evidence that employers have some fairly significant attitude
problems. It is not simply a matter of racism, there is a fear
of people not fitting in; there are some clear fears about employing
refugees. There are things that I think the Government could do,
and JCP could help. Again, I suspect it is quite similar to other
groups that JCP has worked with where they are quite hard to place,
yet, when employers do place them, they find they are fantastic
employees. So they have a lot of experience working with hard-
to- place groups, and the lessons that can be learned from lone
parents and British ethnic minorities could be transferred across.
For example work placement; so if somebody is in a workplace and
can be seen to be successful, employers might find those barriers
are overcome. Also, I think the Government in general could do
more to promote an understanding of what refugees bring to this
country and the contribution they can make and trying to do more
to bring a wider understanding of that group.
Q215 Ms Buck: I have got four questions
in five minutes, so we will see what we can do. The first thing
is: I would say, in my experience, that one of the principal drivers
of poverty, in my area anyway, is the extent to which households
are accommodating refugees, people working their way through the
system either not yet having status or falling foul of the system
in some way, which is the NASS/DWP interface. It is households
carrying people with no income, section 55 disclaimers, people
who have dropped through holes in the net in NASS. I have got
people who have waited a year or a year and a half to get benefits
after NASS, or after they have had their papers, or because there
has been a Home Office mix up. I have had a family with two children
who have been taken off their father's application and have disappeared
and have had no income at all for a year and a half. Could you
quickly comment on the kind of poverty, the social poverty implications
rather than the individuals, of how we are putting in place systems
for asylum seekers and what the implication is for them?
Ms Sherlock: It is extremely interesting
to hear you say that. We have been campaigning against section
55 under which people who are deemed not to have applied quickly
enough for asylum, irrespective of the strength of their asylum
case, are denied any sort of support while the case is being processed.
One of the things I would like to come back on is that the Government
is saying that there is no evidence that these people are homeless.
You go to the homeless hostels and you go to places where homeless
people hang out. They are not there: ergo there is not
a problem. We did a report where we surveyed refugee community
groups and refugee communities and frontline agencies to find
out, and we found out—it is so interesting—that what
is happening is exactly what you describe: communities are taking
people in. They are taking it in turns to have them on their floors.
The houses are overcrowded. The communities themselves are taking
the money out of their own pockets and the impact on what are
already some of our poorest communities is a burden they simply
cannot be expected to carry on. It is a particular problem that
is going to get worse because section 55 has only been in now
for—in practice it is only in a second year, but it is a
cumulative problem. This problem is going to get worse because
cases do take a long time. It has been compounded by people who
are in that limbo at the end, hard cases who have been through
the process, been refused asylum, but often cannot physically
be returned because there is no safe way to get back to Somalia
or Iraq and they are stranded, often with no money. It is a huge
problem. One of the things that can happen—the other aspect
of what you describe—is people are taking a long time to
get access to benefits. There was a pilot run in Liverpool, very
successfully, where when letters were issued giving refugee status
with them came a National Insurance card. Things as simple as
the fact that it can take weeks or months to get a National Insurance
number can make a big difference. So if that can be rolled out
quickly to helping people to move in.
Q216 Ms Buck: That is very helpful. Three
questions in two minutes. The back-dating issue. The fact that
DWP officials sometimes do not know and advise people of the system
of back-dating entitlements and the impact of the proposed withdrawal
of the back-dating entitlement?
Ms Patel: In our experience the
back-dated payment has been extremely helpful to enable refugees
to make the transition which we have talked about previously,
to help them buy the basic essentials that they need at that stage.
We are concerned that there are plans to remove that entitlement,
and I think we have expressed our concern. It is on public record
that we are concerned about this move. In terms of the proposal
to replace it with a loan, I think one has to wait to see the
detail of what is being proposed, but I think it is absolutely
critical that at the point at which people are given the status
they are given sufficient resources to help them to begin to make
a home; relocation costs, money to buy things like furniture,
to help them to put roots.
Q217 Ms Buck: If you could say in one
word: will it make integration harder?
Ms Sherlock: Yes.
Q218 Ms Buck: Third question: one minute.
The removal of the right to choose housing after a positive decision,
after dispersal, makes a certain amount of sense in terms of the
distribution of housing availability. My suspicion is that it
will increase the number of people going for support only options
in London and the South East. When they get a positive decision
they will apply for housing in London and the South East. Does
that increase the risk that the Home Office is going to remove
the support only option? Is this going to have perverse consequences?
Ms Sherlock: I worry very much
that the Home Office may choose to remove the support only option,
and I think it would be a very grave mistake. I also think that
decisions about people being entitled to chose where they live
either at the dispersal stage or subsequently when they get status,
which is also under threat, actually make it all the more reason
why the Government needs to focus on getting dispersal right in
the first place. If they are going to stay in areas for a long
time, you really need to get those areas right in the beginning.
Q219 Ms Buck: Families who receive a
positive decision will then, certainly in London and the South
East, go into the homelessness route and into temporary accommodation.
In temporary accommodation, a misnomer, they will stay several
years. Rents in temporary accommodation are £400 a week in
some cases. It is almost impossible for a refugee family to then
clear the housing benefit hurdle in order to be able to take a
job. Is there a case for saying that the approach to refugees
needs to integrate with the approach to temporary accommodation
to create a work incentive proposal? Is it madness to take two
parallel routes of refugees on the one hand and temporary accommodation
on the other?
Ms Sherlock: I absolutely agree.
There would be much more of a chance of people moving into work
if you can make that transition work, but you must take a judgment
about housing people which creates a sustainable solution, or
at least a pathway from one to the other. Otherwise we simply
create a situation where those who wish to work and support themselves
are prevented from doing so by the consequences of a government
policy never intended to have that effect.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
help and assistance this morning. The meeting stands adjourned.
|
