Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
MONDAY 6 MARCH 2006
RT HON
JOHN HUTTON
MP
Q300 Jenny Willott: Is it possible
on appeal for somebody's sanctioned benefit to be backdated and
repaid? One of the issues, for example, we have had raised in
some of our previous evidence has been that there are cases where
people have mental health difficulties where they are wrongly
classed as being non-compliant when actually it is a factor of
their illness.
Mr Hutton: I am obviously disappointed
to hear that has happened because in relation to mental health
we do take extra safeguards to make sure that we do understand,
for example, the reason why someone has not attended a work-focused
interview. So there is a home visit programme built into the process
that leads up to an eventual sanction, but my understanding is
that if the person wins the appeal, there is a retrospection element
to that so the benefit will be restored to the level it should
have been.
Q301 Jenny Willott: Are you aware
of health professionals raising concerns about the implications
for medical ethics if it is made compulsory to participate in
medical interventions like, for example, the Condition Management
Programme?
Mr Hutton: I am not really quite
sure what the concern is there. I am aware some concerns have
been expressed, but is there anything specific you want to raise
with me?
Q302 Jenny Willott: Just whether
that had been brought up as an element of concern and how far
compulsion should go and how far sanctions should be able to be
spread?
Mr Hutton: The decision to sanction
is not a decision of a health professional; it is a decision of
the Jobcentre Plus personal adviser.
Q303 Jenny Willott: Certainly, but
the compulsion element might be determined by somebody within
the Jobcentre Plus requiring a claimant to undertake some medical
intervention or some medical action.
Mr Hutton: No. We will not do
that. We cannot compel people to undergo medical treatment. That
is not part of the sanctions regime.
Q304 Jenny Willott: So the Condition
Management Programme is not going to be included as part of the
elements of conditionality?
Mr Hutton: No.
Q305 Jenny Willott: So it would specifically
be entirely work-related activity, so job searching?
Mr Hutton: I think we have to
be very careful about sanctioning medical treatment. We are not
sanctioning that type of thing now. We will have to be very careful
about saying to a competent adult that they have to undergo a
particular type of treatment, particularly mental health treatment,
or face a benefit sanction. That is a very difficult step to take
because of the right of an individual to decide their own medical
treatment. You have to be very careful in that regard.
Q306 Jenny Willott: So are saying
it will not happen?
Mr Hutton: No, it should not happen.
Q307 Jenny Willott: Thank you. In
the Pathways to Work pilots, there is a lot of evidence that existing
claimants, the stock, horrible expression, are volunteering in
enough numbers to show that compulsion is not actually necessary.
There is also evidence from the initial evaluation of the Pathways
to Work pilots that shows that compulsion can be counter-productive
to existing claimants and also that compulsion can specifically
have a particularly negative impact on mental health conditions.
Why do you feel it is necessary to introduce conditionality, and
potentially sanctions, given that so many people are already volunteering?
Mr Hutton: Remember, in the Pathways
areas new claimants have to be part of the work-focused interview
regime.
Q308 Jenny Willott: I am talking
about the existing claimants?
Mr Hutton: Right. In all these
things you have to be clear about what your ultimate end purpose
is, what it is you are trying to do. I think it is entirely reasonable
for us as a society to say we are prepared to make a very significant
investment in providing extra help and support for people on benefit,
but we do expect people to be part of that process of getting
back to work, where that is possible. Were we not to take that
view, most ordinary members of the public would find our stance
utterly incredible, but there is a world of difference between
taking that reasonable stance, which is what we have done in relation
to the New Deal, very successfully in the last few years, between
saying we expect people to attend a work-focused interview and
start to plan their return to workI think that is an entirely
reasonable thing for society to say to people on benefit, for
exampleand saying on the other hand we are going to behave
like a Nazi state in relation to people when they are in the benefit
system. The problem with this whole area is that quite often it
is automatically assumed that if you are going to apply any level
of conditionality, it is going to be applied inappropriately,
and I do not accept that. It is the hallmark of a fair and balanced
welfare system that there are proper rights and responsibilities
within the system, and I really would question whether it is unreasonable
to say to people coming into benefits "We expect to see you.
We expect to sit down and plan with you your return to work."
The whole system of the Employment and Support Allowance is going
to be geared around that basic premise that it is wrong and utterly
unfair to disabled people to assume that, because they are claiming
an Employment and Support Allowance, they are not capable of working
ever again. That is a nonsense.
Q309 Jenny Willott: I do not think
any of us have said that this afternoon.
Mr Hutton: No, but what is underpinning
this argument that there should not be any level of conditionality
at all is that really, people are not capable of working, and
therefore it is wrong to go through this exercise of requiring
people to come in and plan their return to work. I just reject
that absolutely. I think if there is one thing, one claim I would
make for these reforms, which is an important issue, it is that
ultimately I think this is an issue here, and the reforms enshrine
this basic premise, that disabled people have exactly the same
right to work as able-bodied people and it is the job of a welfare
state to support and find a way of making that right to work a
reality for disabled people. That has never been achieved in the
welfare state so far. Quite the opposite. You look at the figures.
If you are on incapacity benefits for more than two years, you
are more likely to die or retire than ever get back to work again.
That is a wholly unacceptable state of affairs, and I really do
not think it is unreasonable or Draconian to say to people coming
into the benefit system "Now that we are going to provide
this extra help and support, we do expect to see you regularly
to plan with you your return to work, and that will be a condition
of your entitlement to benefit." I think in relation to Pathways,
as I said, it is quite wrong to say that it has all been based
on a purely voluntary approach. That is not true. For new claimants
it has been a requirement to be part of the work-focused interview
arrangements, and if you look at the success, the vast majority
of the successes, the job entries, have come from people who have
entered Pathways through that particular route. So I would take
issue with those people who say we do not need a conditionality
regime here. I think it is an absolutely essential part of these
reforms.
Q310 Jenny Willott: The issue I am
raising with respect to what you have just said, what you were
saying as the arguments, is not what we have been suggesting this
afternoon. The point is that for existing claimants, absolutely
we identify that there are a significant number of people who
are disabled and on incapacity benefits who want to return to
work anyway, and who are volunteering to take part in the programme.
The issue is why was a decision made, rather than to invest in
publicising the positive outcomes of the pilot and doing it in
a much more positive and proactive way, instead to put resources
into conditionality and potentially sanctions, because there is
going to be an in-built cost, particularly if you have to have
an up and running appeals process and so on to deal with those
who are going through the conditionality?
Mr Hutton: Like all these things,
the choice comes down to this, basically: is it all going to be
entirely voluntary or is there going to be an element of conditionality?
I think it is entirely right for there to be an element of conditionality,
as long as that is fair and reasonable, and I think attaching
it to the work-focused interviews is a fair and reasonable point
to attach it. It is a perfectly credible argument to say there
should be no compulsion at all; there should be no conditionality
whatsoever in the system, but I seriously doubt whether that is
a sustainable long-term position. I think in relation to existing
claimants we have said it is a voluntary approach, and that is
perfectly fair and reasonable, but specifically in relation to
new claimants, we have taken the view this will be a conditionality
approach that we will adopt and I think it is working. I think
the evidence there is that it is working, and that is equally
true of the international evidence, and I think we should basically
go with what works, I think we should be fair and reasonable to
people, I think that is absolutely essential, but I think the
idea that you could really do all of this from an entirely voluntary
approach with no conditionality regime at all I struggle with.
I think that would be incoherent to the public at large.
Q311 Jenny Willott: Finally, in the
existing Pathways to Work pilots, the number of work-focused interviews
for existing claimants is three rather than six. Can you tell
us what the rationale was behind that decision?
Mr Hutton: It was our first stab
at trying to work out what the right balance was, and again, for
existing claimantsand I think you are talking about people
who have been claiming incapacity benefits for up to two yearsthere
was a recognition that they are probably in a different space
and place than people coming into the benefit system ab initio,
so to speak, with an originating application. So they are a different
bunch of people if you like, and we were trying to do it gradually,
to understand what works and how to treat people fairly and reasonably.
For new entrants coming into the system, the one thing we have
learned is that you have to engage quickly, and you have to be
decisive and clear about the help and support packages you put
in place, and that is why we have gone for more proactive intervention
with the new claimants, because of that basic understanding that
we have about the need for primacy and immediacy in your response
to a new claimant. People who have been on the system for a while
longer I think are in a different place and we wanted to try and
make this bridge between virtually no contact with Jobcentre Plus,
which is basically what most people on long-term IB have, minimal
contact, to the point where they are getting gradually more and
more regular and frequent contact, and from October this year
that regime, that requirement to attend for three work-focused
interviews, of course, as you know, will be extended to people
who have got up to six years of claiming incapacity benefits.
We need to re-establish contact with a large number of people
who we have not heard of, in many cases, for a very long period
of time so we can sit down and start to plan with them how we
can help them get back to work, if that is what they want.
Q312 Jenny Willott: So is it envisaged
that they would have more work-focused interviews but they just
would not be compulsory, or that they would only have three?
Mr Hutton: No, we are not planning
to make any changes to the number of compulsory work-focused interviews
for existing IB claimants. We have drawn the line where we have
drawn it, and it may be it is not the most scientific distinction.
Q313 Jenny Willott: I was not meaning
in the future in terms of your planning. I was meaning, do you
envisage that when an existing claimant goes into the Jobcentre,
they have three compulsory work-focused interviews, and after
that that they are able to take it more at their own pace on a
voluntary basis with their adviser?
Mr Hutton: If you are a new claimant,
and unless I have it wrong, you will have six.
Q314 Jenny Willott: Existing claimants?
Mr Hutton: You will have three
work-focused interviews, yes. That is the deal for existing claimants.
Q315 Jenny Willott: Yes, and are
you expecting that they then have more that are not compulsory?
Mr Hutton: I think that is perfectly
possible, yes. I do not think their sole contact with an Incapacity
Benefit personal adviser would just revolve around the three compulsory
work-focused interviews, no.
Q316 Jenny Willott: Can I just clarify
one other thing? You were saying that in October it will be extended
to people who have been on incapacity benefits for up to six years.
Will there be an element of compulsion, conditionality, applied
to them participating in the system as well?
Mr Hutton: For the work-focused
interviews, yes. I think that is in the Pathways areas, but I
can write to the Committee with the details.
Q317 Michael Foster: I think you
have acknowledged the particular challenges that those with mental
health problems sometimes have in returning to the work force,
and in the Green Paper the role of the personal adviser, as they
have in the Pathways to Work projects, has been an important part.
Do you think those personal advisers have sufficient training,
particularly in dealing with mental health issues?
Mr Hutton: That is a very moot
point. We provide, I think, up to about 26 days of specialist
training for Incapacity Benefit personal advisers, and again,
the details of the training, if the Committee would be interested,
I would be very happy to make available to you, but we do try
very hard to make sure that our personal advisers are properly
trained and equipped to do the very difficult job that we ask
them to do. Can we improve on that? Yes, I am sure we can and
we should always be prepared to look at ways of improving the
training that we provide, and we do that. We do make a major effort
to try and get this right. It is a very difficult field, certainly
in relation to mental health, to make sure we have given our advisers
the full range of competences they need. It is very difficult.
Q318 Michael Foster: The reason I
ask the question is that under the Green Paper, of course, they
will have the powers to agree appropriate actions. In fact, they
have already under the Pathways to Work projects. What we are
being told by groups such as the Disability Rights Commission
is that personal advisers appear to waive or defer WFIs more frequently
for those with mental health problems than they do for others,
which may suggest a lack of understanding of the condition that
they are looking at.
Mr Hutton: It might mean a number
of things. That might be one possible explanation. The other explanation
might well be what we have just been discussing. I made it clear
there are additional safeguards that we try and follow in relation
to someone on incapacity benefits who has a mental health problem.
So there is a home visit, there is a proper effort made, rightly
so, to establish the reason why a person failed to attend a work-focused
interview, and we need to be sure about the reasons for the non-attendance
before we could consider applying a sanction, and that may well
be the other equally plausible explanation as to why, like for
like, there seem to be less sanctions being applied in relation
to people on incapacity benefits who have a mental health problem
than those who do not.
Q319 Michael Foster: In a sense,
personal advisers are relatively low-paid individuals. I am not
saying they are not competent but they are not professional in
the sense of having any experience in dealing with mental health
conditions except through experience of the work they do. Do you
not think it is really a role for health professionals to make
judgments when they are talking about the conditions of those
with mental illness?
Mr Hutton: We do, as I said, try
and make sure that our personal advisers have the necessary training
to allow them to discharge their functions, one of which is to
make a determination in some cases of a decision to sanction.
I think it is entirely reasonable to place the responsibility
at that point. It has to be clearly matched by the appropriate
level of training, and we do, as I said, try very hard to do that.
We do not ask Atos Origin to make benefit sanction decisions;
that is not the contract we have with them. I am not persuaded
that it would be sensible to employ, as it were, medically qualified
people to make decisions about whether it is right to sanction
in relation to non-attendance for a work-focused interview. That
is four square within the responsibilities of Jobcentre Plus to
resolve.
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