Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2006
MR CHRIS
POND, MS
KATE GREEN
AND MS
SUSY GIULLARI
Q80 Mrs Humble: We are running out
of time so, Susy, yes or no, do you agree?
Ms Giullari: I have nothing to
add.
Q81 Mrs Humble: Finally from me,
picking up on Chris's point about work-focused interviews and
the reason for work-focused interviews, there is a lot of debate
now within the terms of the Welfare Reform Bill about the
role of voluntary organisations in delivering on those work-focused
interviews. What role do you think lone parent organisations should
have in engaging in that way?
Mr Pond: We would certainly be
very reluctant participants in that process, it has to be said.
We talked earlier about the success very often of the voluntary
sector in engaging with lone parents, in building trust with lone
parents, and if we are seen to be mechanisms for imposing sanctions
on those same lone parents then that could compromise the ability
for us to help those people and to provide the sort of support
that they need. We are not convinced that sanctions in themselves
are going to be terribly effective, as we have just described,
and we would be very reluctant to see the voluntary sector being
asked to take on that role in itself, so while we understand that
the voluntary sector, if it is going to take on some of the other
aspects of helping people into work, will also have to take on
some of the less palatable aspects, we do not believe, frankly,
that this is going to make much of a contribution in helping people
into work, whether it is in the state sector or in the voluntary
sector. We are very nervous about the idea of the voluntary sector
or the private sector being given that extra responsibility.
Mrs Humble: Again because there are lots
of other areas to cover, do you both agree with that point of
view? Right, thank you.
Q82 John Penrose: Can I just pick
up on some of the last points you have been making about the importance
of flexibility, particularly when dealing with multiple deprivation
and ask you some questions about the New Deal for Lone Parents.
The first question is: how do you think it is working and where
do you think it is working and where do you think it is not?
Mr Pond: I have cited one or two
examples in terms of my own organisation's activity where that
sort of flexibility is working very well indeed, particularly
in the Marks & Start programme. There is also some suggestion
that the Employment Zones because they give the option for more
flexibility are a way of moving beyond what is achievable through
the New Deal or New Deal Plus. I think the jury is out on that
at the moment. It is very clear that Employment Zones and the
role of both the voluntary and private sector within them can
make a contribution. I do not think we can assume that it is a
substitute for what can be achieved by Jobcentre Plus as a national
programme. It is clearly complementary. It can address the particular
circumstances and a particular labour market for a particular
group of lone parents, and that is helpful, but it is not the
substitute or the alternative. New Deal Plus because it is a more
flexible programme (and it is being piloted at the moment) does
offer very considerable potential for providing that sort of flexibility
and tailoring of support that is needed by individual lone parents.
We would like to see New Deal Plus rolled out with the resources
that are required, particularly for the emergency fund to be available
across the country and for a longer period of time than the 60
days for which it is currently available, because there is evidence
that that is a very flexible means whereby personal advisers can
provide the support that lone parents need at those moments that
they need that support and can really help lone parents both to
move into work and to stay in work.
Q83 John Penrose: Would you like
to add anything to that?
Ms Green: No.
Q84 John Penrose: I just want to
push you a bit further then if I can because I am not clear as
to where you think that New Deal and New Deal Plus is in need
of further change. Where is it not working well and what is that
telling us about the barriers which people are facing which it
is not overcoming and which might need to be addressed in the
future?
Mr Pond: I would certainly say
that there is a real challenge now in terms of the training that
is provided for lone parents through the New Deal. We do know
already that it is only a very small proportion of lone parents
who receive that training already. The proportion receiving that
training is declining and the access to that training elsewhere
through changes in the learning and skills councils and their
focus on 16 to 19-year-olds rather than adults does mean that
the availability is being reduced still further. Given that we
know that a major barrier for lone parents entering sustainable
employment is the level of qualifications and that we need to
increase their ability to access higher quality employment, then
that is a policy which in the long term is not sustainable and
we would like to see much greater investment in training and we
would like personal advisers to have much more discretion in their
ability to allocate those resources to lone parents.
Q85 John Penrose: Forgive me, that
sounds to me as though that might be a problem which is broader
than just lone parents and what you are talking about there is
the New Deal for people with low skills, and that will not just
be lone parents, that could be all sorts of other groups who are
currently disadvantaged in the labour market as well.
Mr Pond: That is absolutely right
and Lisa Harker's report for the DWP makes the very important
point that this is not just a challenge facing lone parents but
that all parents do face challenges and would benefit from the
additional support. We know also that this is not, as the Chairman
said at the beginning, a homogenous group, that there is an interchangability
between lone parents and other parents, normally women, in couple
households and that, on average, people are only lone parents
for five and a half years at a time. That means that if you can
provide the support to parents in couple households then when
and if, sadly, they find themselves in the situation of family
breakdown that they already have the abilities to maintain themselves
within the labour market or to enter the labour market, if that
is appropriate. Our concern would be that the resources are already
very stretched for provision for lone parents as it is, and we
would ask questions about where the additional resources are going
to come from to provide that sort of support to parents in couple
households. The principle is right but we need to make sure that
the resources are there and that the specialist support given
to lone parents is not lost in that process.
Q86 John Penrose: Would either of
the other two of you add any other problems? We have said low
skills is one of the major issues that is currently going unresolved
relative to other things. Are there any other things which are
equally causing people to trip up and not get into work successfully?
Ms Green: I think the engagement
with employers is underplayed in the strategy that comes out of
the DWP. That is to some extent understandable because of the
engagement that is needed from other government departments to
make the employers' role work more effectively in the totality
of labour market policy. It seems to me that we have got some
good examples of how, when programmes are developed with employers
that enable lone parents, and indeed other benefits claimants,
to move into jobs that exist and for which they can be prepared
and skilled, those jobs tend to be better quality jobs. They tend
to be jobs which it is easier for people to sustain, and from
the employers' point of view of course it is a more effective
investment in terms of getting the workforce that they actually
need. However, I do feel still that the labour market strategy
coming out of the DWP is very much about preparing people for
work and less about preparing the workplace for people. So I think
that a much more engaged approach with employers, as we saw I
think with the Ambition programmes a few years ago, is the weak
link to some extent.
Q87 John Penrose: One of the examples
we have come across elsewhere in our inquiry has been the question
of employer discrimination against people with disabilities. Are
you saying that there is discrimination still against lone parents
just because they are lone parents or is it more subtle than that?
Ms Green: I think there are a
number of things going on. I am not just talking about employers'
practices and behaviours in terms of potentially discriminatory
behaviour, although I think some employers show a remarkable lack
of flexibility in terms of thinking about how the workplace can
be adapted to meet the needs of parents, lone parents, disabled
people, whatever it is, but it is not just an issue of employer
discrimination that I am talking about here. I am talking more
broadly about the mismatch between preparing people for work without
recognising what sort of jobs exist in the community for them
to move into. We need a much better matching up of that preparation
and the labour market opportunities that exist locally.
Mr Pond: If we look at the examples
where employers have understood the importance of providing that
sort of flexible support—and I have mentioned Marks &
Spencer but we have also done some similar projects with other
firms like Asda and Barclaycard to provide support for lone parents
when they are going through difficult periods—those firms
have found that that makes commercial sense to them, and in the
case of Asda it has resulted in a very substantial reduction (in
a particular pilot so we do not know if this is replicable across
the country) in one pilot in their staff turnover, which means
for their bottom line that is very important indeed. We need to
make sure that employers understand the importance of giving support
to what is a very valuable part of their workforce to keep them
in employment. We also need to ensure that the structure of employment
rights is there to encourage employers across the board to provide
that flexibility. The right to request flexible working should
perhaps be extended. We need also to ensure that the minimum wage
is set at an adequate level.
Q88 Michael Foster: Chris, you referred
to the DWP figure which I think is really impressive that if the
job exit rate was the same for lone parents as for others, we
would need to do nothing else and we would have our 70% anyway.
Obviously there is a reason why it is different and I wonder if
we could explore a bit why you think that is the case. Is it,
for example, the work first idea, that any job is sufficient?
Perhaps you could comment on that.
Mr Pond: I must first correct
myself. I should not say we need to do nothing else because you
could very quickly find the job entry rate slipping if you did
nothing further on that, but certainly the challenge would be
much less if you could get the job exit rates in line for lone
parents as for other parents. Then you would be most of the way
towards the target certainly. The reason that job exit rates are
so much higher is partly to do with the type of jobs that lone
parents are getting into, the fact that because they do often
have lower levels of qualifications they can only access jobs
in those sectors of the economy which are not particularly rewarding
and which do not offer very many prospects of advancement in their
careers, and therefore the long-term prospect of employment itself.
We also have a situation where lone parents are trying to balance
their family responsibilities and their employment responsibilities
in such a way that it does mean that when those crises arise that
affect all of us as parents, when you are on your own bringing
up children, those crises can really make it very difficult for
you to maintain a normal pattern of employment. We need to look
at more flexible patterns of employment and not just assume that
part-time work equals flexible work because it very often does
not. The very startling fact that I mentioned earlier in this
session, that 31% of people leave their employment when they become
lone parents, is a very real indication of the sort of pressures
that people perceive themselves to face: dealing with the debts
that often result from relationship breakdown; trying to deal
with childcare issues; and trying to provide support for their
children at a difficult time. If we could find a way of providing
extra support for parents during those periods, then we could
reduce that job exit rate very considerably.
Q89 Michael Foster: Would you like
to comment particularly on that aspect about people not returning?
They have got their maternity leave, they have got plenty of time
to think about it, but they do not go back; can you comment on
that?
Ms Green: Many do go back of course,
so that goes back to the comments we have been making throughout
the morning about lone parents not being a homogenous group, and
responding differently to their family circumstances, in the way
in which they are able to deal with those. I think the issues
that Chris raises are the right ones about why people either may
not go back to work or may not stay in work, to which I would
add the issue of pay. If it is not economically worth their while,
then all the other hassles that go along with being a lone parent
and in paid employment—coping with a family crisis, as Chris
says, getting children to different childcare and school places,
the costs of going to work, the pure financial costs—are
likely to make the equation look unattractive to a lone parent,
and so I think pay is an absolutely crucial part of the mix of
supporting lone parents both to come back into employment and
then to stay there.
Q90 Michael Foster: Is the family
network support different nowadays as well? Empirically it appears
to be that grandmothers now work. Is there a point at which we
just have to accept that?
Ms Giullari: Obviously there has
been a substantial change, and we have to be careful about the
cases where we have grandmothers doing a treble shift, maybe working,
caring for dependents and looking after grandchildren at the same
time. There is definitely an issue here. We also know that lone
parents rely heavily on informal care so informal care from a
grandmother, sister or perhaps friends still happens a lot, and
we should not ignore that, and we should not assume that that
does not happen. What we also know is that in order for that to
happen there is also an issue of paying for that informal care.
The norms about paying for care are very strong in the UK, quite
different to other countries, so the assumption that, "Yes,
my mum or my sister or whoever is very happy to look after my
children, I should just let her do it", is actually wrong.
A lot of lone parents pay for informal childcare. It is a lot
cheaper than formal childcare but it might happen sometimes in
kind where people are unable to reciprocate in cash. Certainly
the fact that lone parents cannot pay for informal childcare is
an issue that needs to be raised because in order to sustain employment,
as Kate and Chris have said, the balancing of work with breakdown
of arrangements, of children getting ill, holiday cover, all the
places where formal care cannot go, it is often done by relying
on informal care. If the cost attached to that becomes too much
and if the ability to reciprocate in kind is not there, then that
care will not be sustainable.
Q91 Michael Foster: We were in Glasgow
last week and we were talking to some young parents there and
they were saying—and I would welcome your comment on this—that
one of their concerns was the fact that when things did go wrong
and children were sick and so on and they lost pay, there was
no substitute, and so the certainty and confidence in the benefit
system was something which (a) prevented them often from taking
the plunge but (b) when it happened discouraged them from going
back to work because they had had a bad experience. Have you any
views as to how we might overcome that, if you believe that is
a genuine barrier?
Ms Giullari: I certainly think
the working family Act did not go very far in terms of providing
parents in work with pay for when they have to take time out.
Parental leave is still unpaid and parents have to lose pay if
the children are sick, unless they use their holidays, and often
parents in work use their holiday time to look after sick children
and when they are ill themselves they cannot take that time off.
I think a certain amount of paid time off, perhaps eight days
a year, would be a measure that would help lone parents in that
case. In terms of benefits I think perhaps Kate will know more.
Ms Green: I very much agree with
what Susy is saying about the strengthening of rights for parents
at work, and for those rights to take effect immediately so that
parents are not put in a position of having to have had a certain
period of service with an employer because, after all, their child
cannot be expected to wait six months before he or she goes sick.
I am not quite clear about whether we are talking about a situation
where a lone parent gives up work and goes on to benefit. Are
you saying could benefits be payable for a period to allow a period
out of work and then back into work again?
Q92 Michael Foster: The shortfall
is the problem. They say on the one hand there is the confidence
and certainty about benefit and then they have short-term losses
which they cannot cope with, and is there any way round that?
Ms Green: Short term losses from
pay?
Q93 Michael Foster: Yes.
Ms Green: And they are looking
for a financial compensation to plug that gap, as it were?
Q94 Michael Foster: Absolutely. Within
your empirical evidence or even better evidence, is that right?
Is that something we were just told or is it perhaps a small issue?
Ms Green: I do not think it is
a small issue. I suspect that if you talk to lone parents, many
of them will say that a smaller but reliable income is what they
would settle for. What is particularly difficult for them to contend
with is unpredictabilities in income and income that fluctuates,
and that is why I think many lone parents prefer to stay on the
poor but safe level of benefits because they know that whilst
it may be possible to move into work and have more of an income
as a result, it may be very difficult for them to sustain that.
Q95 Michael Foster: The final question
is really about the social support of lone parents once they are
into work. Sometimes if they do not have that family network and
so on they have only got few people within their small network.
The sort of group we saw last week suggested that when they had
an institution to go back to, a centre or place, that worked very
well. Is there anything other than places like that that you could
suggest might support lone parents once they are out there in
the workplace?
Mr Pond: Some of the evidence
suggests that the motivations for lone parents staying in work
are slightly different from those which motivate them to go into
work, and that is often about the structure of support that is
there and available in the workplace. They are concerned about
their relationship with colleagues or with their boss, and therefore
the approach of other colleagues and of the employer is very important
indeed. If I could extend an invitation, if the Committee would
like to visit one of the Marks & Start projects, you would
see the way in which other people working in the firm as established
employees provide mentoring and support for lone parents on the
programme, which is not only very important for the lone parents
themselves but is also very important for those who act as mentors,
all of whom have moved on to become supervisors within the firm,
so it is a matter of career development for them as well as the
support available to those who spend their time on the Marks &
Start programme.
Q96 Miss Begg: We have already, thanks
to Michael (but we will not point the finger at him), talked about
the benefits system and the barriers that it creates, but I want
to explore it just a bit more. You have already said this morning
on a number of occasions that the benefits system and the way
it operates at the moment is one of the major barriers to getting
lone parents into work. Can I get you to list simply in what ways
it is a barrier and, secondly, what you think the Government should
be doing to overcome those barriers?
Ms Green: Perhaps if I could start
with three general points about it. First of all, as I am sure
the Committee is very well aware, there is the interaction between
earnings and benefits and the claw back of benefits and tax credits
as people move into work, the taper for housing benefit, the way
in which as you increase your hours your tax credits will start
to reduce quite sharply. We have said many times before those
withdrawal rates do need to be looked at again. That is the first
area. Secondly, going back to the point Michael was raising a
few moments ago about periods in and out of work, I think the
linking rules are complicated and it would be worth the interest
that the Department is taking in benefit simplification, giving
some thought to whether the linking rules could be simplified
to make the interaction between time in and out of work work better.
Thirdly, as I have hinted at earlier this morning, I think the
fact that the benefit regime determines the support that you get
is a mismatch that does not do as much as it could to ensure that
we maximise the chances of reaching an 80% employment rate across
all different kinds of benefits claimants. I think Lisa Harker's
report very helpfully points to how you could be less fixated
on a rigid regime that attaches to a particular kind of benefit
and begin to think more about the nature of the individual, and
I think that would be a very important shift for us to start to
move towards.
Mr Pond: We need to move towards
a situation where the benefits system is a bridge into employment
and much less of a hurdle than it is at the moment. The most important
thing for lone parents, as Kate has pointed out, is to have some
predictability about what their income is going to be in employment
compared to what they will get on income support, which is very
predictable indeed—inadequate but predictable. One of the
factors there is to make sure that, for instance, lone parents
receive the maintenance that they are entitled to when they are
on benefits through the proposals of the reform of the CSA, because
of course if they then know how much they are going to be getting
in maintenance once they move into work then that adds to the
amount they will receive in pay and in support through tax credits,
and that will therefore give them an additional element of predictability
and an additional element of security to help them move into work.
So the evidence is that if we were to have the full disregard
on maintenance, as has been proposed by Sir David Henshaw, that
in itself could lift 90,000 children in lone parent families out
of poverty as well as helping many of them with that bridge into
employment.
Q97 Miss Begg: The women that we
were talking to in Glasgow thought that if there was some kind
of rollover of the benefits that continued certainly through the
first month in work, then the gap that they found very often between
a weekly benefit and monthly pay would be bridged and would again
give them that security. Is that something that you would advocate?
Mr Pond: Certainly we need to
look at ways of trying to provide that continuity because that
period while lone parents are waiting for their first pay packet
can be a very difficult period indeed. It will be a real disincentive
to many lone parents to take that step, wondering how on earth
they could make ends meet while they wait for the first pay packet
to come in. So we do need to explore new ways of providing that
rollover into employment.
Q98 Miss Begg: The other thing that
cropped up in Glasgow was that in some of the estates where you
have inter-generationally worklessness, the impact of the benefits
system is actually encouraging that to happen. It was particularly
looking at young people and in some families young people are
actively discouraged from taking a job because if they start to
earn, it impacts on the family's benefit and they may start to
lose their housing benefit and their council tax rebate as a result
of having an earner in the household. Picking up on what Justine
said, she said that in London a lot of the lone parents who cannot
find housing where there is a housing shortage are sleeping on
couches, possibly of family, possibly of friends. In some cases,
particularly for a young lone parent, going back into the bosom
of their family might be the most sensible thing to do. It gives
them support rather than being in a lonely tower block by being
back into the family with the support mechanisms there. If the
family is workless and is on benefit then it becomes a negative.
If they have got the support, they possibly could go out to work
because they have got the inbuilt childcare but they are discouraged
by the family and the circumstances of the families around them
as well to remain on benefit. Is that something that you have
looked into? Is that something you have got a solution to? Is
it something that features quite highly in the work that you do?
Ms Green: The first thing to say
is that I am not aware of just how widespread this issue of inter-generational
worklessness is. We talk about it quite a lot, but I am not sure
what the statistics would tell us about to what extent that exists,
whether it exists in particular communities or in particular locations,
and I think we would certainly benefit from a better understanding
of where this situation is a problem and the extent of that problem.
Secondly, I think that the issue that you are raising about the
impact on overall family incomes if an adult moves back into the
family home goes back to the point I was making earlier about
the huge complexity of the system and the way in which different
benefits, housing benefit, income support, may be impacted by
the arrival back in the family of that adult. At the very least,
I think there is a need to look again at simplifying those non-dependant
deductions rules because they are extremely confusing and I think
the mere fact of confusion is undoubtedly going to be a disincentive
to people to move into paid work. Then I think the third point
is that for some lone parents moving back into the family home
and being with their mother is actually a very attractive form
of support, but for others it clearly is not and I think we do
not want to be setting up a system which disadvantages those lone
parents who cannot or should not, in terms of their and their
children's welfare, be feeling pressured to make that move back
into the family home, so it is important that we have proper financial
support for those lone parents for whom that is not an option
as well.
Q99 Miss Begg: The women that we
spoke to in Glasgow, quite a number of them had never worked.
They had obviously left full-time education and had become parents
very early, so they had not worked, so it was much more difficult
for them to get back into work because they had no confidence
that they could either find a job or sustain a job. Again it is
back to the inter-generational point, that if we are looking at
young people who come out of families who are not in work and
who become lone parents who have never worked, that must be an
incredibly difficult group to actually find into work. Should
we in fact be working more closely at the other end of the spectrum
before they become lone parents of making sure that the young
girls who have aspirations and expectations who leave school and
training have a job before they find themselves pregnant and find
themselves back on that cycle of deprivation, if you like, where
it is almost impossible for them to get off that treadmill?
Ms Green: Absolutely. I think
the potential of the schools, the education system and particularly
what happens in schools, to impact on long-term employment rates
and child poverty is absolutely crucial. The raising of aspirations
of people from disadvantaged families and backgrounds is a vital
part of a long-term child poverty strategy. Still today children
from the poorest backgrounds have the poorest educational outcomes
from school and it seems to us very clear that something is not
working in schools to raise the achievement of those poorest pupils
to the extent that it should. We believe that is in part about
the way in which schools allocate their funding so that it is
not necessarily well targeted to raise the performance of their
poorest pupils. We believe that the opportunities for parents
to have more choice in terms of the school that they send their
children to may exacerbate the situation by having more of the
poorest children concentrated in schools where it would be all
the harder to raise performance. We are also very concerned about
the ability of the poorest children to participate in, the range
of, out-of-school and extra-curricular activities which can be
very much a part of this building a broader range of skills and
engagement in the community and self-confidence and all the more
so when we look at the agenda to develop extended schools, which
CPAG is very supportive of, but we do believe that there is a
danger that the activities which extended schools will offer,
if a charge is made for participation in those activities, could
again mean that those pupils who could benefit most from them
will be less likely to do so.
Mr Pond: I would add very briefly
to that that whilst that is all very important, and we absolutely
agree with all of that and of course dealing with the causes of
the problem, particularly teen pregnancy, is very important, but
let us make sure we keep the perspective on this. Only 3% of lone
parents, as the Committee knows, are teenagers. The average age
of a lone parent is 35 and, therefore, the option to move back
into the family home for them is really not an option at all.
Chairman: Thank you very much. That was
very interesting and very informative and we appreciate your contribution.
We will see you again, I hope.
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