Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR ALAN
BARTON, MR
STEVE JOHNSON
AND MS
LINDSAY ISAACS
3 NOVEMBER 2004
Q1 Chairman: This is the first oral session
on our new inquiry into Pension Credit. This morning we welcome
to the first part of the oral evidence session Citizens Advice
and Citizens Advice Scotland. We have Lindsay Isaacs from Citizens
Advice Scotland and Steve Johnson and Alan Barton who are both
from Citizens Advice in other parts of the United Kingdom. You
are very welcome, and thank you very much for the sets of written
evidence, which we have read to our advantage. I do not think
that there is any real purpose in your explaining what you do,
because I think we know. Indeed, we depend a lot in our constituency
lives on what you do, so I think that we are all fairly familiar
with what you are doing. If you do not mind, we will go straight
into the questioning. We have four or five areas which we would
like to cover in an hour, and it is not a long time. Let me set
the ball rolling myself by asking a question. You may have picked
up that we had an interesting exchange with the new Secretary
of State, Alan Johnson, a fortnight ago. He took a refreshing
view of a number of things, but one of the things which caught
my attention was that he seemed to imply that, when he took a
first look at the brief when he took over the department, he came
to the conclusion that 100% of the people who were in the lowest
levels of household income were being addressed by Pension Credit
as it is currently constructed, rather suggesting that it was
the small amounts, the weekly amounts, that were left to be dealt
with as a take-up issue. If my understanding of what he said is
accurate, do you have any sense of whether that reflects your
experience, or is it based on anything that you are aware of in
terms of research or data? It would really help the Committee
if we could have your opinion on that view which the new Secretary
of State seemed to take.
Mr Barton: We had spotted that
he had said this and were quite surprised that this was the conclusion
that DWP had come to, because the overall figures show that take-up,
at the end of August, was still less than 70%. It is very common
for pensioners to feel that they have to live on their state retirement
pension. So bureaux are still regularly seeing people who would
qualify for some Guarantee Credit for that reason. Also, many
people come into eligibility for Pension Credit when they qualify
for a Disability Benefit, because that may well qualify them for
a premium in their Pension Credit. It is widely acknowledged that
take-up of Attendance Allowance is very low. The last figures
the Department for Work and Pensions published a little while
ago were about half. Certainly CAB visiting staff, who go and
take claims from people in their own homes, are still very busy
and still getting lots of people on Attendance Allowance, and
those who would then qualify for a premium would then qualify
for £40-odd extra of Pension Credit. We will therefore be
very interested to hear what the analysis from the DWP is, because
it is a bit of a surprise to us.
Q2 Chairman: I should perhaps say that
we still have not had the corrected transcript. It may be that
he inadvertently left us with the impression and he did not mean
to say that. He still has an opportunity to refine that piece
of evidence which he gave us. Lindsay—I will not do this
all the time, I promise you—is it different in Scotland?
Please chip in if there is anything specific you want to add.
Ms Isaacs: I will, but I think
that our experience probably reflects what Alan said. We still
get a lot of case evidence from bureaux which indicate that clients
are not in receipt of the Guarantee Credit. They do not know that
they are entitled to it, and the bureaux help them go through
the application process.
Mr Barton: There is one other
point, Chairman. One group where I should imagine the take-up
is pretty near 100% is people who have a very low state retirement
pension, because they simply will not have enough to live on;
so they will be getting the Guarantee Credit. I would expect that
group to be 100%.
Chairman: He may have had that in mind
when he said that. That is very helpful.
Q3 Vera Baird: Clearly you must be right
in what you have last said: that people with very low pensions
are more likely to be claiming. However, at the moment Alan Johnson's
analysis—and it is uncorrected yet—leads him to say
that two key things need to be done to improve take-up. One is
to look for ways of making claiming small amounts more attractive,
because he is suggesting that they are the people who do not bother
to claim for a little bit. The other is to address the perception
that he sees out there: that it is not worth claiming, because
it affects your Housing Benefit. First of all, your comments on
those two as reasons why people are deterred from claiming it.
You seem to be suggesting that underlying it is still a prevailing
ignorance that people are entitled to it. Is that right?
Mr Barton: I think that there
are considerable numbers of people who might be regarded as hard
to reach, who are not really aware of what their entitlements
are. As an example, Caradan CAB down in Cornwall, at the beginning
of last month, had a "Don't Miss the Bus" campaign for
a week, where they had a bus that went round to car parks in different
parts of what is a very rural and quite poor area. They were overwhelmed
by the number of people who came in. They had 270 people over
the course of the week who came into them. They found that there
were quite considerable numbers of them who did have entitlement
to Pension Credit. We certainly acknowledge that the DWP has done
a great deal to try to communicate with pensioners, but they still
found that there are quite substantial numbers of those people
who have an entitlement. So I think that there is quite a lot
of ignorance. I do not know if it is ignorance or still a feeling
that "This doesn't apply to me", amongst pensioners.
One point they made in their report to us was that people are
very independent in that part of the world, as are indeed a lot
of the older range particularly of pensioners.
Q4 Vera Baird: Are you saying that those
people were entitled to quite a large amount of Pension Credit,
so they would not fall into the category that Alan Johnson was
talking about—of people who had not bothered because they
were only entitled to a little bit?
Mr Barton: We do not have an analysis
of that, but I think that quite a lot of them were people who
had a Guarantee Credit eligibility.
Q5 Vera Baird: How do you comment on
his proposal that making ways of claiming more attractive to people
who are only entitled to a little bit is one step forward? Is
there, in your view, this problem of people thinking that it will
impact on their Housing Benefit if they do claim?
Mr Johnson: I certainly think
that is the case.
Q6 Vera Baird: The second one?
Mr Johnson: Yes. To address the
earlier point—if Alan Johnson was right, then we would have
been establishing high claims at the beginning of the scheme and
low ones now. We are not finding that at all. We are finding high
claims now and I do not think that there has been much of a drop-off
in that. In my bureau in Walthamstow, north-east London, we are
getting not an awful lot of people coming in specifically about
Pension Credit but, when we interview them and look into other
matters, we are establishing big under-claims, particularly round
disabled people and carers. That is very worrying. Whilst it is
the case that Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit have been
proofed against gains from Pension Credit generally, I think there
is a wide misunderstanding about that. It is always the received
wisdom in social security that it is "in one pocket and out
another". That is a very hard thing to break down, especially
for people who have already benefited from the higher applicable
amounts at 65, who are then not inclined to go for Savings Credit
because they perceive there will be an 85% taper here on their
award. Why bother? We get quite a lot of "Why bother?"—given
the kind of bureaucracy involved in claiming.
Mr Barton: On the point about
Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, it is the case that,
for people who have claimed Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit
and then subsequently claim Pension Credit, if they are getting
a small amount—if they are in the Savings Credit—they
will have an 85% taper on that. There certainly are people we
have dealt with who have taken the view that it is really not
worth all the bother. Whether that is the right view to take,
I am not sure. They should get, if they claim Pension Credit,
a five-year award period, which means that they do not have to
keep going back in relation to their Housing Benefit and Council
Tax Benefit either. Of course they are also eligible to apply
to the Social Fund if they have Pension Credit—which they
are not if they are only on Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.
Q7 Vera Baird: If you are confident that
we have now discussed the major reasons you are aware of why people
do not claim Pension Credit, can we have, if you have one, a recipe
as to how the DWP should increase its targeting, with some reasonable
expectation of getting the 90% which you think ought to be their
target?
Ms Isaacs: Alan mentioned it,
but there needs to be more emphasis placed on not necessarily
what you would lose or what people perceive they would lose, such
as Housing Benefit, if claimed, but what gains they might also
get by claiming: for instance, the other passport to benefits,
things like access to the Social Fund. Also, in Scotland the Scottish
Executive is thinking about tying in access to fuel poverty measures,
such as central heating and insulation, to claimants, people who
are in receipt of Pension Credit. Also, Citizens Advice Scotland
is talking to Energywatch about possibly trying to introduce a
social fuel tariff for pensioners who are in receipt of Pension
Credit. So there are many benefits that people would be able to
claim if they were in receipt of Pension Credit, and I think that
those need to be emphasised.
Q8 Vera Baird: I think that you have
said in the past that more needs to be done to encourage take-up
through face-to-face contact.
Mr Barton: Yes.
Ms Isaacs: Very much so.
Q9 Vera Baird: It seems that the DWP
has been doing quite a lot about that. What more do you think
it could do?
Mr Barton: We have published work
in relation to MIG, which showed that, for quite a lot of harder-to-reach
groups, face-to-face work is exceptionally effective—and
possibly the only effective way. I think that DWP is recognising
that now. We have been disappointed that they were quite slow
to recognise the necessity of this, and there was very strong
emphasis initially on direct mail and mass media. There are additional
advantages, as well as those that Lindsay mentioned, in that if
a CAB is dealing with a pensioner they would look at all the benefits
that they might be entitled to. So often what they will be picking
up initially is an eligibility for a Disability Benefit; then
that may also lead to eligibility or a greater payment of Pension
Credit. So the face-to-face approach also has the advantage that
it covers the whole lot, rather than just being narrowly targeted
on Pension Credit.
Mr Johnson: The preferred model
is the telephone access system, which we see in tax credits as
well. I can well understand why that might be the preferred mode,
and I know that there is research to suggest that people like
using the phone. However, at ground level, anecdotally, quite
a lot of older people have difficulties with the phone: not just
people with language problems but as a matter of confidence. I
am quite concerned that the kind of emphasis on telephone access,
particularly in view of the sort of poor advice people get over
the helpline generally, is a matter for concern. I would suggest
that we need much more targeted home visiting, trying to encourage
people. All of our experience in the CAB over the years has shown
that people will open up much more at home than they will in a
DWP office or even a Jobcentre, as has been floated.
Ms Isaacs: Certainly our bureaux
clients prefer face-to-face contact rather than phone contact,
and I imagine that will be reflected in terms of other services.
Also, I noticed that the DWP research, as far as I can understand
it, into how well the telephone service was being received was
only conducted—it got a fairly good response—specifically
on people who were using the telephone service, which means people
who might be more inclined to be a self-selecting group. I do
not think it necessarily targeted people who either had not used
it or had chosen not to use it.
Q10 Vera Baird: There is an Age Concern
report saying that 70% of applicants thought that the application
process was easier than MIG. But you are saying that there are
still difficulties with it, and that face-to-face is better?
Mr Barton: We absolutely agree
that, for lots of people, claiming by phone is excellent and they
like it. We have been concerned that the claim line staff do not
always seem to have been well trained to spot claimants who are
not coping very well with the call. There are a lot of older people
who do use the phone regularly in their day-to-day life, but who
do not feel comfortable carrying out long and complex calls. We
also find that there are people who do not like giving a lot of
personal information over the phone to a disembodied voice.
They feel very uncomfortable about that. We do feel that the staff
on the telephones ought to be better trained at spotting that
a telephone is not a good idea in this particular claim and offering
the person someone else. I believe they have conversion targets,
as they call them, at the helpline—which may act as a disincentive
to saying, "Would you like us to send you a paper form?"
or whatever.
Q11 Vera Baird: What is a conversion
target?
Mr Barton: That a certain proportion
of the calls they take should result in a Pension Credit claim.
Q12 Vera Baird: Converting a call into
a claim?
Mr Barton: Yes.
Q13 Vera Baird: And if they send somebody
off to the Local Service, then their numbers may be endangered?
Mr Barton: Yes, that is right.
Q14 Vera Baird: Is the Local Service
adequate then? Are we failing people who are not good on the telephone?
What, again, is your recipe?
Mr Johnson: I think that we are
possibly failing people who do not use the phone, for the reasons
explained; particularly people whose first language is not English—we
have to think about that—people who are hard of hearing;
but also the people who never get to the phone. They are the ones
I think we should be more concerned with: where it does not occur
to them to make a phone call, and how to reach them. I do not
think we have come with a perfect answer to that. My local Pension
Service has been working with us to try to find ways of reaching
people. We have thought about offering light bulbs to people who
have a calculation done. That has worked in other areas.
Q15 Vera Baird: Delivering light bulbs
to people?
Mr Johnson: Yes. The Government's
own research shows that, once a calculation is done, people are
much more likely to go for a claim, once they know it is worth
doing. Locally, with the Housing Benefit scheme take-up several
years ago, people were given a light bulb if they had a calculation
done. They went mad for it; they went up and down the street,
getting their energy-efficient light bulbs. So stuff like that—to
try and encourage people in.
Mr Barton: The Partnership Fund
that the DWP has announced and taken applications for is a welcome
development. This means that statutory and voluntary agencies
which need to co-operate with each other—which is another
area that we think is very important locally—can apply for
funding for take-up work. I believe that the applicants have been
told if they have been successful, and quite a lot of CABx have
been involved. That sort of local partnership work is a really
important plank in the way ahead.
Ms Isaacs: Generally in Scotland,
the Local Service that has been on offer has been good and fairly
well received across the country, both by claimants of Pension
Credit, but also bureaux staff report favourable experiences.
There was a DWP Scottish annual forum, and we were assured that
the number of Local Service staff was not going to be cut. We
hope that is the case because, even though it is working well
now, we do not think that it will work efficiently if there were
staff cuts. One final thing to say on that is that, although the
service is good, in order for it to be an adequate and viable
alternative it needs to be offered up as such, so people need
to be more aware that there is an alternative service. I think
that it needs to be more accessible and better publicised.
Q16 Vera Baird: You think that with the
proposed staff cuts—the PCSU says 55%, apparently, of higher
executive officers have already lost their jobs because of re-clustering
the Local Services—you sense an impact already, do you?[1]
Ms Isaacs: At the forum we were
assured that the Local Service staff numbers were not going to
be cut. We just hope that is the case, because they are operating
well at the moment but we do not think that they will be able
to continue providing that level of service.
Q17 Vera Baird: So you are not speaking
from any experience of the impact of these job losses?
Ms Isaacs: No, we are just projecting,
if there were to be a cut.
Q18 Vera Baird: Can I come back to what
Steve said about language? There are apparently up to 150 languages
available on the interpretation service. The figures say that
there were only 371 requests for the Language Line between April
2003 and August 2004. Is that the scale of requests you would
expect, or do you think that is low or high?
Mr Johnson: We client-profile
very regularly, and 45% of our clients regularly assert that English
is not their first language. That is our client group in north-east
London.
Q19 Vera Baird: That does not mean they
cannot take a phone call.
Mr Johnson: No, quite. I can say
that, anecdotally, people are far less inclined to use the phone
when they do not feel confident with it and I think that language
must come into that. Also, to ask about Language Line you must
be on the phone. It is not surprising that people are not asking
for Language Line when they are not using the phone in the first
place to access applications. I cannot offer data on that; it
is just anecdotal.
Mr Barton: May I make a point
about the Local Service and the 55% reduction there is said to
be in the number of staff at the management level? I do find that
a bit worrying, in that these staff have a really important role
to play in developing and maintaining partnership working with
other agencies. One would be looking for some sort of reassurance
about how that will be maintained. The other point about the quality
of staffing from the Local Service—generally in most places
it is good. A lot of quite experienced staff from the Benefits
Agency felt that this was the sort of work they wanted to do and
moved to it. That is not absolutely universal. We have seen a
number of cases where people have been badly advised by Local
Service staff about their possible benefit eligibility outside
of the Pension Credit area, particularly in relation to Disability
Benefits, where some of the staff seem to think that if you are
disabled then you qualify for Attendance Allowance, whereas of
course you have to have care needs to qualify for Attendance Allowance.
So we have seen situations where people have been encouraged to
apply for things they do not actually qualify for. We would like
the DWP to make sure that these staff do have the adequate training
for the range of work that they are now doing, which is probably
rather wider than historically they have been expected to do.
1 Footnote: The memorandum from PCS says that
"55 HEO's have already lost their jobs, which is 30% of the
HEO strength": (PC17, para 15). Back
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