Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 153)
WEDNESDAY 16 MAY 2007
MR STEVE
BROACH, MS
JANET ALLBESON
AND DR
PAUL DORNAN
Q140 Mrs Humble: Janet, do you think
there are any ways of improving the existing working relationships
between, for example, HMRC and DWP?
Ms Allbeson: In a sense, it is
a long-term project. One of the big changes is about getting IT
systems that are compatible so that you can communicate between
the two systems, and similarly, within DWP having markers for
DLA receipt or non-receipt which carry over into all the consequences
of that in terms of premiums and whatever. Also, when it stops,
because one of the common causes of overpayment is not remembering
to tell the right people when something stops. The inter- and
intra-departmental system links between HMRC, local authority
and DWP is one way forward.
Dr Dornan: I do not think I have
anything earth-shattering to add to that. It does go back a lot
to data matching, as I think is being described. The thing I would
add to that is real-time data matching. We do have a lot of system
sweeps going on, particularly for passported benefits: X department
sweeps the system to see who is getting X benefit and then to
work out entitlement. The need to have systems able to update
each other in real time is really quite important if you have
changes of circumstance going on. There is quite a lot of potential.
Clearly, as Janet says, it is a long-term project and has been
embroiled in myriad problems, technical difficulties and organisational
difficulties in just operating across boundaries, but I think
there is a lot more potential in data matching.
Mr Broach: You can fine-tune the
system and you should, but with all the problems and challenges
that it raises, you still need families to know that they have
to update the system. Families need to have a way to input their
changed circumstances. Our concern is that that can only really
effectively be delivered locally.
Q141 Mrs Humble: Finally, can I just
challenge the underlying assumption in your submissions and in
fact much of the evidence that we have heard this morning, which
is that it is okay to have back-room complexity so long as the
claimant experience is one of simplicity, however that is achieved?
That sounds very reasonable but, if you have too much complexity
in the back room, that in turn can lead to errors. Janet, you
mentioned the CSA. One of the drivers for reform and simplification
of CSA was the horrendous rate of mistakes by CSA staff because
they were trying to implement a system that was hugely complex
and that nobody could understand. It is actually a bit more complicated,
this balance of what is happening in the back room and what is
happening at the front desk.
Ms Allbeson: I have been involved
in doing social security for a long time, used to write the handbook,
taking cases with the Commissioner, doing tribunals, chairing
tribunals on social security. Social security law is complex.
There are a lot of decisions that have to be made but the model
that is adopted is one of trying to reduce everything to data
processing. It is all about pressing buttons. The reality is that
you have to understand the rules behind the pressing buttons and
the cost pressures on the Department, which in a sense I suppose
are inevitable, but it means that you have really fairly basically
trained staff doing clerical tasks and they do not understand
or they cannot explain what they are doing. It is just one tiny
bit of a process to make a decision and, in a sense, maybe there
is a need to think that through, whether in some ways the service
would be better if more thought went into who is delivering it
and the quality and the level of the staff who are taking some
of the decisions on it. It is complicated. Yes, you have to have
systems that are manageable by staff but you also have to look
at recruitment and pay for staff in terms of the quality of staff
that you are actually asking to do quite difficult jobs.
Mr Broach: I would echo the training
point for staff and the quality of staff point, but I think also
a very useful role of the Benefits Simplification Unit would be
to look at, from a customer's perspective, why we have complexity
in the system and almost to be able to explain every single element
of complexity on the basis of how that benefits the consumer and
how that benefits the potential claimant, and therefore you would
end up with a system that was focusing on high levels of need,
not on complexity to eliminate entitlement.
Dr Dornan: If I could very briefly
comment, I think your question is in part very fair, that clearly
back-room complexity, if it is totally unmanageable, undoubtedly
creates front-room problems for people and for families, and so
to that extent there is absolutely grounds for looking at whatever
you can do in terms of reducing that level of complexity per
se. I would agree with that entirely. At the same time, in
a system which, as has been perfectly adequately demonstrated,
we do need some level of complexity to meeting complex and difficult
need, that does take you down the delivery line. So I give you
a bit of a mixed answer. You are absolutely right that there are
aspects of complexity. I have given one example around backdating.
Another one is around the way in which decisions are changed,
supercessions, and I am told by one of my colleagues, who should
know, that it requires 34 paragraphs of law to tell you how you
change a decision, with about 65 sub-paragraphs to at least one
of those clauses. That feels to me to be too complicated and that
is bound to cause a chain of problems and difficulties managing
that. So yes, that needs looking at. At the same time, to take
that logic and to say you must make a system that is so simple
that it can be very easily administered does rather suggest to
me that you drive the system to its absolute minimal level, and
that is not going to be adequate to deal with the complicated
needs Steve is describing, I think.
Ms Allbeson: One example, I think,
is benefits for people from abroad, where there are very complex
rules governing asylum seekers, people from accession states,
European workers, which are really quite a tricky subject and
tax people with a lot of knowledge and experience. That does require
decision makers inside the Department who can do that.
Q142 Miss Begg: Joan did mention
that someone else was going to ask about a single point of contact,
and it is me. All of you have raised concerns about the lack of
synchronicity in benefits between DWP, HMRC and local authorities.
How do we bring that together? How do we make it simpler in the
medium term? Is the answer for the other groups that Steve has
mentioned the key worker for an individual? Would that work across
the lone parents and other groups as well, or is it merely something
which would work in terms of disabled families?
Ms Allbeson: One-stop shops have
been a sort of Holy Grail. I have been around since the days of
Michael Bichard, when he ran the Benefits Agency, and that was
one of the goals then of the benefits system. It has proved very
hard to put into practice; that is the truth of it. Clearly, because
of different institutional imperatives going different ways, you
have however many local authorities there are administering Housing
Benefit in their own way locally. It is right to try and build
much closer links. I think it is a goal worth having but I think
it is very hard to achieve. Steve's model: I think there are particular
groups who we know are have complex needs; people who are disabled
who have a disabled child are one group in particular. There is
a whole cluster around all the problems of going back into work
where you could put in people to guide people through that. One
could look at pinch points as one incremental way forward towards
a greater goal. It is very hard though.
Dr Dornan: If I could very briefly
add to what Janet said to that, I absolutely agree. The one thing
that I would add is that, if you are a claimant approaching a
system, the natural assumption and I think the entirely reasonable
assumption is that if you are going to the state, to Government,
to public service, if you are going for some kind of assessment,
giving some information, that that information will be shared.
I think that is the assumption and I think that is where claimants
would quite reasonably naturally start from. The fact is that
there are all sorts of institutional, historical, difficult reasons,
which I entirely agree are clearly there and will make reform
very difficult, quite understandably, but from the claimant's
point of view, the system should be much more joined up, and so
looking at it that way, it has to be the goal we should be aiming
for. That is not to deny any of the highly difficult issues in
terms of getting to that point. However, it should be the goal,
I am sure.
Mr Broach: I would just add that
a lot of what this Committee is looking at is difficult, expensive
and time-consuming and if time and money is going to be spent,
we would rather see it spent not on radical system reform, which
is a very uncertain outcome, but on take-up campaigns that really
promote the existing entitlements to families, and on delivery
reform at a local level, because surely it is not beyond the wit
of Government to develop a system where an individual person can
advise an individual claimant on a holistic level about all of
their entitlements to support. CABs already do that from the voluntary
sector perspective, and surely the Benefits Agency could deliver
the same level of support locally, without needing to completely
transform the system with all the potential unintended consequences
that flow from that.
Ms Allbeson: It is also having
intermediaries that people are brushing up against. Even simple
things like having a baby, making sure that all the other professionals
that someone comes into contact with are telling them how to deal
with the process and plugging up to them their entitlement. For
example, you can qualify for the Sure Start Maternity Grant if
you are getting Child Tax Credit, even if you are not on benefit.
Most people assume it is on Income Support. If it is your first
baby, you do not get Child Tax Credit until your baby is born.
You put in your claim for Child Tax Credit and your claim for
Sure Start Maternity Grant and the Maternity Grant might be turned
down because you still do not have your Child Tax Credit. You
have to know to reapply, to put your claim in and then reapply,
and in a sense, it is other people who can tell you that. Word
of mouth is very important, that the health visitor, someone in
the doctor's surgery, is thinking about the outlets that people
do brush up against that can really check them off and give them
a helping hand along the way.
Q143 Miss Begg: How realistic would
that be, Janet, to make sure that health visitors know when they
visit the mother of a new baby, to say, "Oh, by the way,
here are a few leaflets that you need to look at"?
Ms Allbeson: They do not need
to know everything. They do not need to know the detail of the
rules but they need to know enough to alert people: "Do you
realise you might be entitled to this? It is worth claiming. Even
if you're not on benefit you still might qualify", if they
realise they have hit a problem, putting them in touch with the
right people. Most people do not necessarily see Jobcentre Plus
offices as places to pop into for a bit of advice. It is how you
make it accessible to people, that integration of information
across a wider group of contacts.
Mr Broach: I think that is right.
It has got to be that clear referral pathway. I do not think we
can expect professionals across the other sectors to become experts
in benefits advice but they need to know where to refer people
on to. That is the whole purpose of the Every Child Matters reform
agenda for children's services.
Q144 Miss Begg: Should that be the
responsibility of DWP to make sure they actually raise with other
government departments, to make sure that that information is
then given to the health visitor? Should the DWP be talking to
the Department of Health saying "By the way, some of the
staff that are working within the health sector have a really
important role, particularly with disabled children, in making
sure the holistic view of that family is taken"?
Mr Broach: I would say more, that
it is the responsibility of the local agencies, the local manifestations
of those aspects of Government, to be talking to each other and
the role of central government is to make sure that the structures
are in place so that locally that chain of conversation can happen.
Q145 Miss Begg: You have just mentioned
the voluntary sector. Is that something the voluntary sector could
take on, or not?
Mr Broach: We are slightly sceptical
about that in the sense that the complexity of the system requires
Government to work more effectively together at a local delivery
level. The role of the voluntary sector is to advise and to offer
expert advice to Government but I think there is a danger in the
concept of the voluntary sector being given the responsibility,
a very onerous task of joining up bits of Government at delivery
level.
Q146 Miss Begg: If I can get you
to sum up the quick hits that the Government could do that would
make life easier. Paul, you have already mentioned making sure
that there are common rules. That is one quick hit. Another quick
hit was the data sharing. I have given you two. Can you come up
with some more things like that that would make a big difference
without having to do the radical reform of the benefits?
Ms Allbeson: I would like more
consideration of fixed awards as a quick hit, Housing Benefit,
say, six-monthly. Tax Credits, depending on the extent of the
wave of reforms that are brought with a higher threshold, to what
extent that does actually achieve a lower overpayment rate. If
that does work, that is fine. If it does not, I think these fixed
awards are worth considering, because it is not just about income;
it is also about security of income; that is something that people
worry about. Also perhaps not tying everything so completely to
Income Support, so that you have run-ons in things like free school
meals for people going into work, so that there is not this cliff
edge between one whole bundle of entitlements when you are out
of work and one when you are in work but you slide people over
much more gradually so that they are not having to do masses and
masses of paperwork and switching systems just at the point they
are trying to cope with getting a new job.
Mr Broach: Three very quick ones:
joining Carers Allowance to Disability Living Allowance claims
for carers with disabled children so there is a single process
of assessment on those two claims; scrapping annual reviews of
DLA awards for children who have long-term conditions, whose level
of need is very unlikely to change, particularly when they have
reached a higher rate care component; and allowing Carers Allowance
to be paid more than once for carers of more than one disabled
child or adult, which would immediately benefit families who have
very significant levels of caring. All those things would be very
simple, relatively speaking, and would directly improve outcomes
for claimants.
Dr Dornan: Could I add
two quick points, one just to add to what Steve was saying, the
use of pre-populated forms from data matching increase the extent
to which we are using existing data. Secondly, and slightly differently,
to pick up the conversation that was happening before in relation
to health visitors, I would like to see some level of not full
advice certainly, but something on the curriculum for people like
health visitors, things around continuing professional development
that would force it to their attention, but actually it is not
an add-on to the job. If you are looking at the health of a family
and the health of a child, their income is fundamentally important
and that should be part of their role. So I would like something
in the professional curriculum on that really.
Q147 Mark Pritchard: I was fascinated
at the eight or nine ideas there in the space of one minute, and
perhaps you guys should go to DWP. I do not know. Max Bygraves
makes me feel old. He used to say, I think, "Let me tell
you a story. I want to tell you a story." A couple of weeks
ago in my surgery I had a chap come in, a registered schizophrenic—obviously
I will not mention his name—and he said, "Mr Pritchard,
I am desperate to start my own business because nobody will employ
me because I've got this on my medical records, but I'm finding
it very difficult. What can I do?" I gave him some advice
and we are still helping him. He said, "The reason that I'm
trying to set up my own business and trying to get off benefits
is because I think the whole benefits system within the next decade
is unsustainable," and I thought "Wow!" Here is
a chap coming off the street in the surgery and making a statement
which I think is probably accurate. I just wondered what your
view is on the current benefits system, how the complexity is
a disincentive for those who want to access the workplace, or
you might see it as an incentive.
Dr Dornan: It is a very interesting
and complicated area. Clearly, you went over this territory slightly
in the previous section. I think it is quite possible to find
areas where people are not better off in work. Incidentally, though
I do not think we have hugely good evidence for this, the Treasury
do publish a table about marginal deduction rates. That is only
one way of looking at the problem because I do not believe that
people go and, in a typical sense, add up what they are going
to lose in Housing Benefit, what they are going to gain in a particular
Tax Credit before they make a decision. The system is far too
complicated to make that kind of calculated view in the way perhaps
economists do but no normal people are capable of. I think what
is very interesting is that, despite the difficulty, people still
do it. In recent months the figure of a third of claims for Jobseeker's
Allowance being repeats claims has been bandied around, which
may well be entirely true. It also implies that there is a great
degree of flux of willingness to try out work, and that may be
against systems but we have got to the stage where things are
so complicated that, clearly, we need to look at the barriers
to going into work, given that that is what most people would
wish to do, but I do not think people make very clear decisions
based on exactly what is going to happen to their benefits before
they take a decision. I think where the crunch comes is when they
go through the system and then they get hit with a load of lost
Housing Benefit and it becomes unsustainable. I would challenge
the extent to which it is being argued that perhaps there were
not that many situations where you were not better off in work.
The grounds on which I would challenge that is the way in which
we measure gains to work. Things like marginal deduction rates
are very much framed around traditional tax and lost benefits.
They do not take into account things like certain aspects of childcare,
travel to work, additional costs of work, which do need to be
factored in because they are how claimants will be looking at
their lives and how they will be impacted. I am not giving a very
clear answer but the reason for that is because firstly, the system
is complicated and there are difficulties in terms of gains to
work certainly, and the system should better support moving into
work, although not at the expense of giving inadequate supply
of income to those who need it and who are not able to work, but
I am not sure that people make very simple answers in that way.
Q148 Mark Pritchard: In the Government's
employment strategy, on which we had an earlier inquiry, the unemployment
rate nationally was 3.8%, I think, and it is 7.3% for those ethnic
minorities. However, within the same inquiry the Government said
that there is no evidence to suggest or there has been no sharp
rise in claims as a result of significant migration, economic
migration, over the last decade, and yet we do know that 7.3%
of indigenous ethnic minorities are unemployed and those are claiming
benefits. We know that. Why do you think there is that disparity?
If you were here earlier, there was a comment about a Somali group
in Manchester needing special help. Do you think it is because
all of those economic migrants are actually working, or do you
think some of those migrants are not working but, because the
benefits system is so complex, they are unable to access the system,
whereas indigenous ethnic minorities, because they are from the
UK, understand it a little bit more, know where to get advice
and therefore do access those benefits?
Ms Allbeson: The benefit rules
are very tightly drawn, so a lot of economic migrants coming here
from the East European accession countries do not have access
to benefits. People from other European countries are coming to
work, so to that extent they may qualify for contributory Jobseeker's
Allowance if they lose their job, because they get that by virtue
of being a worker, so to that extent they are not necessarily
into the benefits system. Obviously, there are some longstanding
issues around people who have the right to remain here, who are
now British citizens, say, who have elderly parents who come.
I do not know. Clearly, people who have a language issue, people
who have come here as asylum seekers and are now refugees, how
they are going to integrate? They need to have access to specialist
support to make sure that they are helped to do that.
Dr Dornan: I am afraid I did not
quite grasp the central nub of your question. I think you are
discussing the difference between the aggregate unemployment rate.
I am afraid I do not know whether you are defining that as claimant
count or the ILO definition.
Q149 Mark Pritchard: The ILO.
Dr Dornan: So you have got rid
of those problems of entitlement in the first place in terms of
the indigenous minority ethnic population and then in terms of
groups who coming in. The main thing I would add is that we risk
not comparing like with like here. I think there are a lot of
issues around the precise entitlements that you may or usually
do not have and, incidentally, that is a great driver of complexity,
the extent to which other groups are being sought to be excluded,
and you have to have a load of case law, a load of legislation
to do that. Certainly, in terms of the new migrants, I think you
are dealing with a very different population, younger, with issues
around skills, et cetera. With existing minority ethnic groups
in the UK there are also issues around skills and also issues
around where people live in the country and in terms of where
local labour markets are which I think have to be factored in
and which takes you to a more complicated position than purely
an aggregate comparison.
Q150 Mark Pritchard: Why do you think
that in London the average young male ethnic minorities are 8.2%
yet we have more vacancies in London than anywhere else in the
country?
Dr Dornan: I think London is incredibly
interesting and difficult; it totally bucks the trend in the sense
that we have high employment and very high non-employment in London
and I accept a lot of that it is patterned through minority ethnic
groups within London. I think I would want to look at the skills
and the opportunities. One thing that we have not talked about
here is also discrimination in terms of the jobs on offer to people,
but I would want to be looking at the skills as well.
Q151 John Penrose: I would just like
to follow up on an earlier answer about better off in work calculations.
We had an example in the first set of evidence of people saying
you have got to be careful about childcare costs and travel costs.
I think you mentioned that just now, Paul. Where those costs are
not part of a government entitlement or benefit, should we be
including those in the question of whether or not you are better
off in work, not because they are not part of a calculation which
every person going back into work has to make but because you
are inherently making the better off back in work calculation
far more complicated by straying into questions of family income
and family expenditure, which are actually nothing to do with
the Government? Is there a case there for saying we are adding
extra complexity just to that by sticking our nose into things
which are estimates and inherently not part of the question we
are asking?
Mr Broach: For families with disabled
children childcare is the number one barrier to accessing work.
The Government has taken responsibility for that issue in the
sense that ...
Q152 John Penrose: That is established
benefits?
Mr Broach: Childcare and Working
Tax Credit. The problem is that the amount of Childcare Tax Credit
is far too low to meet the costs of the childcare experience by
families with disabled children. So in terms of families who are
worse off in work, we have calculated the gap for our families
compared to other families is five times as much. They are paying
five times as much for childcare as families with non-disabled
children. That is an absolutely primary driver to keeping families
out of work and the result of that is that only 16% of mothers
of disabled children are in any form of paid employment, as opposed
to over 60% of mothers of other children, so there is direct correlation
between that.
Q153 John Penrose: As you say, the
state is taking responsibility for that but it is a benefit which
is ...
Mr Broach: Precisely.
Dr Dornan: Can I say two quick
things? The first is that clearly, and I think the previous discussion
probably covered this adequately, it is very difficult to produce
Better Off Calculations for agencies and so they are often of
poor quality, et cetera. I take that point but your question is,
is it what we are trying to capture, I think, and that implies
that what we all need to know about it is aspects to do with public
delivery or aspects to do with benefits, taxes that the state
administers. If it is a better off in work, I would argue that
actually we should be looking at the claimant's position out of
work and the claimant's position in work. You have to start with
their lives, not from the state as it is providing to them, and
they are going to be thinking about those other aspects of their
lives; they are not just going to be thinking about additional
tax, NI and lost benefits or additional Tax Credits. They are
going to be thinking about the childcare, they are going to be
thinking about the difficulty of getting to work, and so if the
objective is to look at the extent to which people can move into
work and can sustainably move into work, I think you have to start
from the position of the claimant, not the position of the administrator,
of the delivery agency, and that suggests to me you need to capture
those costs.
Chairman: Thank you very much. This has
been a very interesting session today and it will all be reflected
in our report.
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