Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
JOBCENTRE PLUS
26 JANUARY 2005
Q20 Mr Steinberg: Well that cannot
be a very good system, can it? I want to return now to the Report.
If you read the Report, it makes it quite clear that the vast
majority of the staff in the benefits offices and the job centres
do not understand the system. So presumably they cannot answer
questions. How can the system work when the staff themselves do
not understand the system?
Mr Anderson: The Report does identify
some shortfall in knowledge of staff and we are working very hard
to improve that. We take a lot of action—
Q21 Mr Steinberg: How long has the
scheme been going?
Mr Anderson: The Fund has been
going a long time, as you point out.
Q22 Mr Steinberg: About 15 years.
It is taking a very long time to do a bit of training. On the
other hand I also read in the Report, if I remember rightly, that
there is no training anywhere. There is no official training.
Am I right?
Mr Anderson: No, that is not correct.
Q23 Mr Steinberg: Well it says so
in the Report.
Mr Anderson: The training has
not been updated nationally since 2002. Training is done on a
local basis, training is presented on a local basis and bulletins
have been issued to update the training which is available to
make sure that it is accurate. So there is training and it is
available to people. We are trying to address the issue that you
recognise, which I accept needs improvement, by the introduction
of a standard operating model across the country, which will increase
the size of the processing units. We are doing this work in 142
places; we are going to do it in about 20 places. That will allow
us to have more people with better knowledge and should improve
the decision making.
Q24 Mr Steinberg: Twenty years ago,
17 or 18 years ago, when I first became a Member of Parliament,
the attitude at the benefit office was never to give advice; if
the person did not ask a question, then they did not pre-empt
it: "Just tell them what they ask and if they do not ask,
do not tell them". Now that was the attitude of benefit offices
throughout the country 15 to 16 years ago. I hope it has changed,
I hope the philosophy behind that has all changed now, the culture
has changed, but when I read this Report, I do not believe it
has. I do not believe that the staff give advice, I do not believe
that the staff guide the people in the right direction and I do
not believe that the staff tell them what they are entitled to
and what they can claim. I do not believe they do it out of vindictiveness;
I think they do it because they do not know themselves. How accurate
is that?
Mr Anderson: Since the beginning
of this year, our customer service target has included a particular
reference to proactivity and that is now measured as part of our
regular service monitoring. We are improving our performance on
that measure as we go through the year. Previously, as you rightly
say, there was not a measurement of proactivity in the service
measures, so we have recognised the problem you address. It is
also fair to recognise that there has been significant change
in the Benefits Agency since it merged with the Employment Service
and the amount of training that people have had to adapt to new
processes, new ways of working is enormous. The priority that
is focused specifically on the Social Fund in that area has to
be viewed in a line with the priority for everything else.
Q25 Mr Jenkins: Mr Anderson, I want
to continue to some degree on the line of Mr Steinberg. When you
read this Report, did you feel elated with the Report or did you
feel somewhat disappointed?
Mr Anderson: I felt that the Report
was well balanced. It recognised some of the things that we are
doing well and drew attention to some of the things that we need
to improve.
Q26 Mr Jenkins: What are the things
that you feel you need to improve on?
Mr Anderson: We need to improve
the consistency of the decision making, and we need to improve
the consistency of the service levels that were being provided.
We have a number of activities which are designed to achieve that.
Q27 Mr Jenkins: Like Mr Steinberg,
when I read this Report I was, to say the least, disappointed
and I thought it looked like we had an organisation here that
was not really in control and there are lots and lots of questions
I could ask you on particular details. Overall, your organisation
does not seem to have the control and as Mr Steinberg pointed
out, you have staff who do not know what is available to them
and maybe you are taking the wrong approach. Maybe you should
have less staff, better qualified, better trained and more able
to assist. Maybe you should be dealing with the telephone, maybe
you should deal with IT and maybe you should have touch screens
so that people know what is available to them. Are we going to
make any progress in this service to make sure this is available
to people?
Mr Anderson: Yes. The key change
is a centralisation in the number of sites from 142 to round about
20, which will improve the critical mass for training measurement
and everything else and the introduction of a standard operating
model, which is one consistent model applied across the country.
It includes definition of roles, definition of training, definition
of how to use the IT and will improve our consistency considerably.
That model is being piloted from the beginning of December; we
have been going with it for six weeks.
Q28 Mr Jenkins: In the Report it
talks about Crisis Loans. Crisis Loans tend to be people walking
into the office and they want a loan because they want it now,
because it is a crisis, and you have a target of one day to assess
and make that loan. How many of your districts actually achieve
that target?
Mr Anderson: The vast majority
of districts achieve it most of the time. The problem is the average
over the year. You cannot get below one day, because that is the
minimum time we can record, but if you have one loan in the year
that takes two days, then you have missed the one day target.
That is why the Report shows a very low proportion of districts,
7%, achieving one day, because that is 7% of districts which never
went to more than one day to deliver a crisis loan. We have made
that target two days, so that realistically, we can see what is
happening. 90-odd per cent of districts—
Q29 Mr Jenkins: That would be an
improvement: double the amount of time you have.
Mr Anderson: It would provide
a more accurate picture of what is happening because the one day
target does not tell us anything either.
Q30 Mr Jenkins: So you were not disappointed
with 7%, you accept that.
Mr Anderson: I do not believe
that 7% provides a useful picture when all that is telling me
is that there are 7% of districts that never took more than one
day. If, for reasons of priorities, occasionally a Crisis Loan
takes two days, then that may be acceptable. Not all Crisis Loans
are for immediate cash.
Q31 Mr Jenkins: So you are going
to have a new target, a two day target. Will it remain a one day
and a two day target and will we get figures for that in the next
accounting?
Mr Anderson: We can certainly
monitor both and it would be more helpful to show how many of
these were actually done in one day and how many in two days.
That is certainly a statistic we can produce.
Q32 Mr Jenkins: When Mr Steinberg
talked about these two people going into two different offices
and getting two different amounts of money, you said districts
have a set amount of money, so they set different priorities and
different awards are made and you said you allocate money according
to the need in the district. Would you tell us which districts
would get the most money? Would it be the most socially deprived
districts, or would it be the wealthiest?
Mr Anderson: Yes, the forecasting
for how much money is needed is based on the proportion of cases
that were able to be met from the budget the previous year. So
those districts which met the least number of cases the previous
year get more money. It is effectively measuring demand and deprivation
and allocating the budget on that basis.
Q33 Mr Jenkins: So the people walking
into the district office with the most deprivation would get a
greater award than the people walking into the office in the nice
leafy suburbs or shire counties.
Mr Anderson: They would not necessarily
get more money, but there would be more money in total available
for awards in that district.
Q34 Mr Jenkins: But it would depend
on the number of cases calling on that money then.
Mr Anderson: Yes.
Q35 Mr Jenkins: I think I understand
that. Now can you tell me, and I might be wrong here, because
I used to vire money around between different budget headings
and all sorts of things, if somebody walks in and they need a
set amount of money, why their award should be affected because
you did not get the formula right?
Mr Anderson: We have to do the
best job we can to allocate the money where the demand will be
and that is what we try to do.
Q36 Mr Jenkins: But within the national
network we can transfer funding around so we know that when the
Fund has gone done to 80%, you can trigger an alarm to send extra
cash.
Mr Anderson: For loans that is
exactly what happens and we move money around for loans during
the course of the year from one district to another. For Community
Care Grants, we only meet high priority cases in the vast majority
of districts; districts all use the high priority money that is
awarded to them. It is therefore hard to see from whom to take
the money to move it to other people. This is a budget where we
have three categories of award: high priority, medium priority,
low priority. We paid no low priority cases last year and hardly
any medium priority cases[4].
All the cases, wherever they arose, were high priority and the
determination of that is the same.
Q37 Mr Jenkins: So you have no plan to
even out this allocation of money then.
Mr Anderson: We believe that it
is allocated in the fairest way that it can be at the moment.
Q38 Mr Williams: May I just interrupt
there? Take the recent floodings we have had and the gales and
so on, this must lead to an enormous demand, a widespread demand.
Is there an emergency top-up available for everyone?
Mr Anderson: There is a contingency
budget which is held centrally to which districts can apply if
there is a particular emergency in their area that means that
the pattern of demand that they have is dissimilar from that which
they have had historically. A flood would be a perfect example.
Q39 Mr Jenkins: I hope Mr Anderson
realises that we have certain concerns and that the recommendations
the NAO have placed in this Report have flagged up certain concerns.
I am going to ask now about the person who walks in, very often
treating you like a bank, a no-interest bank and they want a loan
from you and they pay it back out of all sorts of benefits over
the next six months and when they have paid it back, they walk
back in and get another loan and pay that back. I am not worried
about that, believe me. I would rather they came to you than to
a loan shark on the corner. You are doing a good job socially
and I would support you. If you want extra money to do that, you
can have extra money to do that. What about the people who walk
in and say "My giro cheque has not come for a Job Seeker's
Allowance, I need some cash now"? You give them some cash,
because the efficiency of the Department is not very good to start
with, they should have been paid to start with. So the first count
is that it is an own-goal. The second one is, when they have not
paid it back and maybe they disappear into the world of work and
then reappear somewhere else, in a different part of the country
maybe or come back on the books, how do you track these people
down? I get the impression that some of these can call in your
offices time after time, take money out, make little or no repayments
and you lose track of them and your debts are building up.
Mr Anderson: Each account will
have a flag on it if there is an outstanding loan at the point
that somebody leaves benefit and when a new claim comes in, the
system will match that up and a Report will be printed which should
be actioned in each office. That does not happen perfectly in
every case and we have another process which allows us to run
a check of all outstanding loans against all new benefit claims
and assess whether an office has actually missed something from
these regular reports. We ought to pick people up when they come
back onto benefit. For people who are still in work, the Report
indicates that we are moving the responsibility for reclaiming
their debt to the Debt Management service part of the Department
for Work and Pensions, because they can use direct debit, which
we do not have, and that will improve the quality of recovery
from people who are in work.
4 Note by witness: The NAO Report (para 3.20)
confirms that payments of applications lower than high priority
are rare, but notes that one District in fact paid low priority
items during 2003-04. This was an exceptional occurrence and was
for a short period only. Back
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