Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
JOBCENTRE PLUS
30 April 2008
Q80 Phil Wilson: In paragraph 4.8
there is a reference to the telephone system. Staff in some of
the sites visited by the NAO told "of problems outside the
Jobcentre Plus offices which impacted on customer service: . .
.delays in processing claims at the Benefit Delivery Centres;
and customers experiencing problems" with the Social Fund.
Has that improved since this Report was written? Do you also find
that frustrating? Is it right that it is outside your control?
Mrs Strathie: We have seen a considerable
increase in Social Fund crisis loan applications year on year
as we have moved to create greater access for customers. It is
not simply access; the levels at which people can borrow also
change, but the new channels have given us the opportunity to
look at ways to deliver better service. We are delivering all
of our benefits faster and more accurately than they have ever
been delivered and we are on target to halve fraud and error in
our main benefits, Jobseeker's Allowance and Income Support. For
example, at the moment in Lowestoft and Middlesbrough we receive
Social Fund crisis loan applications by phone from the south east
of England, Birmingham and other parts. We now have the capacity
to route the calls to different places. In Lowestoft and Middlesbrough
we are also piloting a single call which includes the agent who
gathers all the information and also makes the decision on the
loan, whereas in the past those would have been two separate processes.
Q81 Phil Wilson: I believe the Chairman
referred to one point that is dealt with in paragraph 4.19: "The
Department's research does not provide evidence on whether Jobcentre
Plus led to more customers finding work." Will you do comparative
research in the future year on year about what lessons you have
learned, whether things are improving and where the problems are
to give some substance to that question?
Mrs Strathie: Absolutely. Every
labour market programme is assessed and evaluated over a long
period of time. This particular programme and the benefits it
set out to achieve have been constantly reviewed. It has been
reviewed by the Treasury. We will continue the self-regulation
that we now have to ensure we stay on track to realise all of
the benefits. As I said at the start, we are already well ahead
with that and we intend to keep our ambition high.
Q82 Mr Davidson: Like some of my
colleagues, I am a fan of what you have done. In the past many
of your customers were treated as scum—I think that is the
best way to describe it—and they responded accordingly.
They now have a much better experience with you and it has been
very good. I pick up Geraldine Smith's point about staff safety
in the new premises. I remember that this was one of the big issues.
Staff wanted barriers and so on to be retained. I appreciate that
you are now recording more than you did before. The difficulty
with that is that it makes it very difficult for us to have comparisons.
Are there any figures that would give us some assurance that,
comparing like with like—serious assaults on staff and so
on—the style of the new premises has had a favourable impact
on the behaviour of customers?
Mrs Strathie: I believe that it
is a favourable style. I can give you volumes or percentages from
2005 onwards in terms of actual or attempted assaults, verbal
assaults and incidents unknown. Given the number of transactions
we do and the amount of customer contact the volumes are relatively
small, but I take every one of those seriously. If you are a member
of staff involved in or witness an unpleasant incident and you
feel that your health and safety is threatened then even one assault
is too many. Through the service delivery model we have perfected
we have a much safer environment for both staff and customers.
Q83 Mr Davidson: I think that is
true, but can you prove it to me? You indicated earlier that you
collected more statistics and, as I understood it, the figures
would be higher. It is a bit like the police writing down more
statistics than they did before about vandalism and therefore
it appears that vandalism is increasing. Is there anything you
can provide to the Committee, even if you cannot give it now,
to demonstrate that behaviour has improved even though difficulties
remain? [5]
Mrs Strathie: We have just had
a full assurance on the process, but we can give you a breakdown
of all the figures over the period. It is difficult to go back
and compare that with offices having a screened environment. Clearly,
if you were behind a screen there would be a different kind of
behaviour on the part of the customer but a different level of
risk and much less risk mitigation.
Q84 Mr Davidson: Given that you can
do everything else I am quite sure that the Report will be able
to clarify all these points to everyone's satisfaction. In response
to Geraldine Smith you said you would provide statistics about
incidents. It would help if you provided them by area. Are there
particular hotspots and areas of the country where your clients
are less well behaved than others? [6]
Mrs Strathie: We can give you
that. Do you want it broken down into individual offices?
Q85 Mr Davidson: Yes, as long as
it does not require a lorry. It is a matter of striking a balance
between too much information that we will never read and something
that you think will be helpful to us. We can always make further
inquiries.
Mrs Strathie: We will do that.
Q86 Mr Davidson: I understand that
99% of the planned offices have been rolled out. Where are the
remaining 1%? Do you confirm that one of them is in my constituency?
Mr Davies: There are two offices
to go: one is in Portsmouth and the other is in Laurieston
Q87 Mr Davidson: What has happened
to the one in Pollok?
Mr Davies: I thought you would
ask that. I could bore the pants off this Committee but I am not
going to. In Pollok the intention was to find a suitable location
for a new office. You will be more intimately aware than most
people in this room about the difficulties in finding premises
that we can use for that purpose. The district manager has therefore
chosen to deliver the best possible service in the circumstances
pending finding a future location. When we find that location
we will construct as necessary a business case which Jobcentre
Plus will consider.
Q88 Mr Davidson: In that case I find
it slightly surprising that that general area is not one that
you have identified as being amongst the 1%. The 100% are only
those centres for which you have identified a location and you
are rolling out.
Mr Davies: Yes.
Q89 Mr Davidson: How many other examples
are there of situations like Pollok where the Jobcentre brand,
as it were, has not yet been rolled out because of a variety of
difficulties?
Mr Davies: There is one other
instance which does not necessarily fit that category but is quite
close. The only other one is a Jobcentre Plus facility in Cumnock.
As far as concerns Pollok, you will not find it on that list because
the programme has now officially closed and it has spent its money.
When there is a suitable opportunity to do something in Pollok,
which has not gone off the agenda but seems to be way into the
future before it happens, the district manager will produce a
business case that will be considered by Jobcentre Plus.
Q90 Mr Davidson: So, there are two
places in the known universe where a Jobcentre Plus will be considered—Pollok
and Cumnock—but it is not yet on the horizon?
Mr Davies: Cumnock is a little
different because it has an existing office on which we shall
spend some money.
Q91 Mr Davidson: So, there is only
one such place in the known universe? Maybe you can provide a
note about where we are with that, because I was under the impression
that discussions with the shopping developer had been moving along.
[7]In
addition to these other changes, two things happened at the same
time: one was the reduction in the number of staff; the other
was the increased move to telephony. It was widely seen at the
time that this was a means of making yourselves more remote and
to save money. Certainly, at that time a lot of people were very
unhappy about the move including the staff. Are you saying to
me that those difficulties have now been resolved and staff and
clients would be happy with the service being provided? I confess
that is not my impression.
Mrs Strathie: As we have measured
what staff think of the service over a period of time it is quite
clear that as they move through their part of the transformation
they change their view about the service they are delivering.
I suppose there is a certain fear factor and inherent conservatism
in human nature to resist change, and for many people this has
meant a new job.
Q92 Mr Davidson: I understand that,
but time is limited. You are saying to us that the staff are happy?
Mrs Strathie: No. I am saying
that staff have gone through an enormous amount of change and
there are many things with which some staff would be dissatisfied.
If you are asking about the service we are now delivering I would
say that more people know they are giving a good service than
do not. There are still people who are unhappy because they would
like to be doing the end-to-end process in one location.
Q93 Mr Davidson: In my constituency
my office has sought to arrange face-to-face interviews and it
has been a struggle. We got the impression that the staff really
did not want to do it because that was the instruction they had.
We were not able to explain to the people involved the story about
their benefits. The people themselves had learning difficulties
and thought it was best to have a face-to-face interview and it
was a real struggle to get it done. Is that meant to be the situation?
Mrs Strathie: No, it was not.
We have strengthened the guidance twice and have just gone through
a process where the customer service directors at every level
have reviewed it. We have a preferred method that is more efficient,
but we recognise there will always be maybe 10% or 15% of our
customers whom that does not fit.
Q94 Mr Davidson: From the point of
view of my own office the impression was that 10% to 15% was higher
than you were considering. You referred to staff not being satisfied
about being able to follow through a case. One of the complaints
we have about the CSA is that the people who phone in never get
the same people twice and very often there is a denial of any
record or information. We have not had the same level of complaints
about yourselves, but how do you avoid the sort of difficulty
with the CSA that I have identified?
Mrs Strathie: The model is predicated
on treating the customer with the information you have, retaining
that and getting the first agent. When you call and you are answered
by Jobcentre Plus you have a range of options and the person who
deals with you is sitting there with a screen and has access to
all the systems including the record from the last intervention
and the ability to have a three-way conversation with HMRC to
sort out tax credits and other things. I would like to think that
one gets a much better service through efficient delivery rather
than reliance on one individual.
Q95 Mr Davidson: If you can do that
why cannot the CSA do it? Would you like to run the CSA?
Mrs Strathie: It is a bit small.
The Child Support Agency as was has delivered incredible performance
improvement over the past year. You will know that it will move,
if it has not already done so, into the new Child Maintenance
and Enforcement Commission.
Q96 Mr Davidson: Something was said
earlier about your backgrounds. For the record, I take it that
none of you is public school and Oxbridge.
Mr Davies: I was at Borstal.
Q97 Mr Davidson: I shall leave that
for the moment. Can you give us a note about your top 20 staff,
giving an indication of how many of them were in either public
school or Oxbridge or both in order that we can compare it with
other departments from whom we have had information? [8]To
what extent do you think your department is, as it were, unfashionable
because you deal with people as distinct from sitting and thinking
about things? There are a number of departments that seem to be
stuffed full of people from Oxbridge who have lots of brains but
no sense and who certainly could not and do not deliver what you
have delivered. Why is that? Why do you think that the Civil Service
as a whole has not absorbed these sorts of lessons?
Mrs Strathie: Before I say anything
do not assume that I agree with all of your analysis. It has taken
a long time for any sector, not just the Civil Service, to understand
the value of operational delivery skills and to see it as a profession
and to have frameworks, standard setting and career paths. Experience
has taught me that the best transformation can be effected by
listening to those who do the job and engaging them in it, and
when you deliver you should set the bar higher again. But one
thing that people do not always do is upskill staff to reach that
higher bar. Those of us who have worked in the organisation perhaps
have a head start in that, but we are getting so much better in
the Civil Service. I have taken on the role of Head of Profession
for Operational Delivery because I know the value of it and that
is a signal of the will to apply that learning across Whitehall.
Q98 Mr Davidson: The final point
I raise is a matter that has not arisen before and is not directly
in the Report: the impact on the service of Eastern European migrants.
I do not know whether you have had experience of the delivery
of service, but presumably if you have dealings with Eastern Europeans
there are language issues and so on. Within your structure are
you able to be flexible enough to respond to that different style
of inquiry?
Mrs Strathie: Eastern European
migrants have not been our customers except in seeking a National
Insurance number to work because we deal with the NI process for
those who come into the country. Generally speaking, the migrant
population have a job when they come and go into work. We see
some of them very quickly between jobs looking for the next job.
In terms of language more generally, we have telephone-based interpreting
services, so basically if a customer indicates that there is no
interpreter we have a three-way conversation with our contracted
providers to deliver that. The most popular language in this respect
is Portuguese.
Q99 Mr Williams: I congratulate you
on the very relaxed and open way you have all given evidence to
us. I may have misremembered, which these days is not unusual,
but I recollect that the last time you were here I was slightly
critical of a particular fact. If I have got it wrong correct
me straight away. You did not allow the disabled to use your offices;
they had to use the call centres. Have I got that wrong—or
did that come from another group who came before us?
Mrs Strathie: Customers with disabilities
come through all our channels. In relation to benefits, until
the beginning of April we had a Disability and Carer Service as
part of the Department for Work and Pensions. That has now merged
with what was the Pension Service and has become the new Pension,
Disability and Carer Service. Those who claimed those benefits
which overlapped with Jobcentre Plus and the Pension Service did
move to a telephone-based operation during the life of that agency.
I do not remember your ever asking me about disabled customers,
but those customers of working age who seek work and have a disability
are handled through a range of labour market support both face-to-face
and on the telephone.
5 Ev 15 Back
6
Ev 15 Back
7
Ev 16 Back
8
Ev 17 Back
| 
