First Special Report
The Scottish Affairs Committee published its Third Report of Session 2016–17, Jobcentre Plus closures in Scotland, HC 979, on 26 April 2017. The Government response to the Report was received on 13 September 2017, and is published as an appendix to this Report.
Appendix: Government response
Introduction
1.The Government welcomes the Scottish Affairs Committee’s report on Jobcentre Plus closures in Scotland, which provides us with an opportunity to provide further information to the Committee and wider readers of this report about certain aspects of the department’s planning to deliver the future estates strategy.
2.After a period of 20 years on 31 March 2018, the contract covering most of our buildings will run out. This has provided us with a unique opportunity, indeed an imperative, to review which offices we will need in the future, taking into account the increased use of online services, the impact of Universal Credit and the anticipated demand on services.
3.The way we deliver services has changed significantly in recent years: for example, eight out of 10 claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance, and over 99% of applicants for Universal Credit Full Service submit their information online. Since 2010, over 3 million more people are in work and the employment rate is at a record high. Female employment has risen by 1.42 million since 2010 and the employment rate is at a record high. Youth unemployment has fallen by 394,000. In Scotland, unemployment has fallen by 34,000 in the last year, the rate of unemployment has fallen by 1.2 percentage points to 3.8%, below the national average of 4.4%.
4.This means we need fewer people to deliver our services; we have gone from 113,000 employees in 2006 to 106,000 employees in 2011 and currently (30 April 2017) 84,000 employees, meaning 20% of the overall rent we are paying is going toward space in buildings we are not using. We have redesigned our estate to respond to this, and future changes in how we deliver services, enabling us to interact with the needs of customers and deliver value for the taxpayer.
5.We administer the state pension and a range of working age, disability and ill-health benefits to more than 22 million claimants and customers. We do this from over 900 sites, of which around 700 are jobcentres. Merging staff and services from some smaller or underutilised jobcentres into larger jobcentres nearby makes better use of space and reduces costs to the tax payer. It also creates the opportunity to provide a wider range of services and better facilities—so providing better service to our customers. The face to face support jobcentre Work Coaches offer will continue to be a core part of the service delivered with an emphasis on maintaining the same excellent customer service.
6.The Committee’s report has acknowledged the department’s original proposal to close 8 out of the 16 jobcentres in Glasgow. Three of the closures, Bridgeton, Castlemllk and Maryhill were subject to public consultation because the new jobcentre would be more than 20 minutes and three miles away.
7.During the detailed analysis of the public consultation responses, it became apparent that the proposal to close Castlemilk jobcentre would have too great an impact on the community. As a direct result of the public consultation we gathered additional local insight to help understand the effects that the closure of Castlemilk jobcentre would have on claimants. Consequently we decided to retain Castlemilk jobcentre, initially in the existing building but with a view to securing more suitable accommodation in the local area.
8.Site level feasibility assessments took place on all proposals to merge two or more jobcentres into a single location; including close engagement with Operational Managers and resource planners to establish how current and future occupancy levels are supported. The assessment of Cambuslang jobcentre identified that despite initial planning, integrating staff and services into Rutherglen would not be feasible due to capacity issues. We therefore decided to retain this jobcentre.
9.Our announcements up to and including January were initial proposals and we were clear that we would consult and assess the impact on service users, staff and business delivery before making final decisions. Confirmation of our plans in July demonstrated that we have listened and taken account of the impact of jobcentre closures. Although we still intend to close 6 of the 16 Glasgow jobcentres, we do not believe this will have a detrimental impact on existing customers. In comparison to other cities of similar size such as Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Birmingham, Glasgow had the highest number of jobcentres per 100,000 of population in 2015, the lowest utilisation rate, and the second largest total jobcentre space. At 2018,with the addition of the new Jobcentre Plus employability centre, Glasgow will still have the highest number of jobcentres per 100,000 of population.
10.The Committee’s report references the strong desire of MPs to explore co-location opportunities to retain jobcentres. The main criteria used to inform our jobcentre strategy focused on business requirements, local operational view of the existing estate, commercial perspective and deliverability within the timeframe. As Glasgow has a high number of underutilised jobcentres, there was no business requirement to retain some of them and therefore we did not need to seek co-locations to house jobcentres.
11.In Scotland more widely, we have worked both with Local Authorities and with Skills Development Scotland (SDS) over a number of years to identify opportunities for co-locatlon where required. This has involved migrating services into jobcentres, Local Authorities, or SDS accommodation. Girvan Jobcentre is co-located in South Ayrshire Local Authority premises. Banff Jobcentre is co-located in Highlands Local Authority premises. SOS services have also already co-located into jobcentres in three other sites across Scotland as well as regular arrangements for SDS to come in to other jobcentres. We also have active plans to co-locate with Highlands Local Authority for Fort William and Wick, and with South Lanarkshire Local Authority for Lanark. We will also continue to engage with SDS, Glasgow City Council or other key partners to explore opportunities for additional ways to deliver services.
12.The Committee will be aware that employment and support to unemployed people is not exclusively a DWP responsibility. We work extensively with other parts of the public sector, voluntary sector, and others to ensure support is optimised. Whilst the report has focused considerable attention on the requirement for a physical jobcentre environment, there are many examples of effective support being provided in non-DWP buildings and we are committed to continuing to develop our partnership delivery.
13.The report has made some helpful recommendations, some of which reflect lessons we have already taken on board and helped steer how we subsequently communicated final decisions.
The Government’s response to the recommendations
Coordination and communication of announcements
Committee Recommendation
14.We recommend that the Government learns from the fact that it had to alter its communications strategy part way through this process, from a strategy of phased announcements to publishing the full list of closures only a few weeks after the Glasgow announcement. The Government should consider more carefully when a phased communication approach is or is not appropriate. As the Department learnt, there are considerable disadvantages to making incremental announcements about UK wide changes which stakeholders are already aware are coming.
Government response:
15.This programme is one of the most complex of its kind, dwarfing similar programmes in other government departments. The primary objective of the communications strategy was to manage the delicate balance of protecting the department’s objective to achieve the best possible commercial deals and secure substantial savings for the tax payer, whilst ensuring that those affected by the proposals were informed at the earliest possible time. With an estate of over 900 properties and a fixed end date, the argument for phased communication was outweighed by the need to protect our commercial position, on behalf of the taxpayer.
16.It was impossible to predict how long commercial negotiations would take as they were subject to landlords being willing and able to partake once we made an approach. The phased strategy involved announcing proposals for sites as soon as we commercially could —so up to December when Glasgow was announced, we had already made approximately 40 other announcements.
17.We also wanted to provide a joined up narrative for city conurbations where there were a number of sites impacted, so that we could provide a fuller and more comprehensive picture to those affected. Glasgow was the first city with all the commercial negotiations ready therefore this was our first city announcement in December.
18.To ensure that programme outcomes were delivered on time, we were required to put those sites where we had negotiated deals with Telereal Trillium onto a legal footing by the end of January. As this portfolio of properties equated to the majority of our sites and meant the proposals would be in the public domain, we could not continue with a phased approach. A decision was therefore made to include all site proposals (where lease agreements had been reached) in the written ministerial statement which was published on 26 January.
19.When we communicated final decisions in July we were able to plan our messages to staff and Government in a much more informed way, and given there was a lower commercial risk we were also able to engage with local managers at a sooner point.
Committee Recommendation
20.Given that a large proportion of welfare policy was devolved in the Scotland Act 2016, we recommend that any future policy decisions which may have an impact on the way that social security is administered in Scotland must be taken in consultation with the Scottish Government.
Government response:
21.DWP is committed to working effectively with the Scottish Government. Where there are differences of opinion or policy, we are committed to working collaboratively to find solutions, whilst being clear what are reserved and what are devolved policy matters.
22.Established and robust governance arrangements are also in place, through the Joint Ministerial Working Group on Welfare and Joint Senior Officials Group, to oversee issues that impact Scotland in relation to the Scotland Act 2016.
23.The highly sensitive nature of the commercial negotiations we were undertaking, on over 900 buildings across the country, meant that we were not able to share details of our proposals until they were due for publication. However, Programme senior leaders met with the Scottish Government and spoke in broad terms about the overarching strategy for Scotland sites in June 2016.
24.We announced our proposals in January about the future of DWPs estate and shared these with the Scottish Government. Since then we have consulted and listened to all of our stakeholders, including the Scottish Government.
25.When we confirmed our final plans in July we were at a point in commercial negotiations where we were able to confirm our decisions (on all but 13 sites) on the same day. The Scottish Government were notified in advance that this announcement was to be made.
26.The Smith Commission was clear that Jobcentre Plus remains a reserved function, and the changes to our estates footprint do not change any DWP policies in relation to welfare reform or its delivery. We are however, committed to ensuring Scotland has a DWP estate that is fit for the future. We have engaged, and will continue to engage, within the required confidentiality parameters.
Provision of jobcentres
Committee Recommendation
27.We recommend that the Department conducts a full and proper evaluation of Jobcentre provision in Glasgow. This must give proper consideration to the geography and transport infrastructure of the city. From the evidence that we have received, we specifically recommend that the Department considers the creation of a large Jobcentre in the City Centre with a small number of additional offices in those areas with poor transport connections to the centre. The Department should send us a copy of that study and inform us of its decision on the matter.
Government response:
28.There are no current plans to revisit jobcentre provision in Glasgow. The jobcentre strategy was extensively informed and driven by operational business managers, who are knowledgeable about their caseload and understand their local communities, and the local travel network.
29.As one of our aims was to save money and to reduce underutilisation, where we had sites which were not suitable to retain or where we felt we needed a site in a specific location we looked for a replacement acquisition. However acquiring a new building is much more costly than retaining a current one which already suits our needs so we were always minded to retain as many buildings as we could. As we had plenty of under-used, quality buildings in the right locations in Glasgow, we did not require or seek new acquisitions.
30.However, we are opening a large, new and modern office in Glasgow city centre which will form a strategic site for our ‘back office’ functions (such as benefit processing) and merge staff and functions from four nearby sites. In addition to the 10 full jobcentres that Glasgow will keep, we have also decided to include a Jobcentre Plus employability centre within this new acquisition—providing support for claimants to use online services, access training and get help with job skills.
31.We engaged closely with Operational colleagues who informed the estate design and we are confident that the totality of Glasgow jobcentre provision will deliver a continuous excellent service to our claimants.
Impact on Jobcentre Plus users and staff
Committee Recommendation
32.We recommend that the Government runs a proper consultation on the changes to the Jobcentre network as a whole, not just those individual Jobcentres which breach the ministerial criteria.
Government Response:
33.We ran public consultations on around 30 sites that fell outside of Ministerial Criteria, although this was not a specific requirement we wanted to gather as much information as we could on how the proposal could impact service delivery and claimants. For Glasgow this has resulted in us retaining one of the jobcentres we previously proposed to divest.
34.The estate design was based on extensive consultation with Operational Managers who understand their claimant needs and community, and we continue this engagement going forward to manage how changes are implemented.
35.For all proposed divestments we also underwent a period of communication and consultation with staff members, Trade Union representatives and MPs—so that there was an opportunity for any issues to be raised.
36.To note, the SAC report suggests that jobcentres are outside of Ministerial Criteria if they are ‘either’ three miles ‘or’ 20 minutes away by public transport from the original jobcentre. This is not correct; for a jobcentre to be outside of Ministerial Criteria it must be both more than three miles and 20 minutes away.
Committee Recommendation
37.We recommend that the Government publishes equality impact assessments for each of the proposed closures before any firm decision is made. The Government should make use of the consultation responses when preparing these assessments.
Government Response:
38.We can assure the Committee that we have been mindful of our duties under the Equality Act 2010, and have carried out site level equality analysis to inform understanding of the effect of our plans before final decisions were made.
39.DWP will maintain services to claimants, whether in their existing jobcentre where a decision is made to retain that office or, where their existing jobcentre will close, at an alternative site. DWP recognises that these proposals represent a major change that may have a greater impact on some groups with protected characteristics than others, as evidence by the public consultation responses. Consideration has been given to appropriate mitigations in respect of any such impacts.
Committee Recommendation
40.We recommend that the Department sets out what mitigation will be in place for Jobcentre users who have had to change Jobcentres and for how long in order to reassure service users.
Government Response:
41.We recognise that some claimants may have to take an unfamiliar journey, however DWP work coaches will be aware of which claimants on their case load have been affected by the closure of their previous Jobcentre and discuss with them, any travel issues they think that they may have in attending appointments at their new office; providing full support over the transitional period and until they become familiar with new travel arrangements.
42.Concerns about public transport will continue to be considered on an individual basis. Depending on the new distance between the claimant’s home and the Jobcentre and the availability of transport, as far as possible, future appointments should be arranged to fit in with their travel arrangements i.e. arrange them for a certain day of the week, in the afternoons or before/after a certain time.
43.Claimants can also request to attend a jobcentre closer to their home or where transport links are better to an alternative jobcentre, should there be one. These will continue after services have moved to the new jobcentre.
44.Jobcentre Plus is able to reimburse travel costs for those claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance or the equivalent claimants in Universal Credit who are asked to attend the Jobcentre outside of their minimum requirement of attendance. This is at the discretion of the work coach taking into account their particular circumstances and includes the first 13 weeks of their claim for claimants who are mandated to attend weekly.
45.We do not expect our plans to result in additional sanctions. No sanction will be applied if the claimant can show that they had good reason for falling to attend their appointment or arriving late for it. DWP can automatically accept that the claimant had good reason due to certain transport difficulties or adverse weather conditions which reasonably prevented them from attendingthe appointment. Claimants should also be advised to contact their work coach as soon as they realise that they may experience problems in attending the Jobcentre on the day/time stipulated.
Committee Recommendation
46.Now that all consultations are closed, we recommend that the Department publishes a clear statement about what expectations will be put on staff in terms of ability to relocate so that staff have clarity and more certainty about their future by the end of April.
Government Response
47.We were unable to announce final decisions and subsequent staff communications until after the General Election due to Purdah restrictions. We issued a department wide communication about this delay to ensure staff were aware of a change in communication timeline, we also ensured all DWP staff were able to access as up to date information as we could provide via an intranet webpage solely dedicated to the estate strategy.
48.Once we confirmed final decisions in July, a second round of one-to-ones commenced with a supporting information pack for individual members of staff.
49.Wherever possible colleagues are either being relocated with their current role or redeployed into another suitable role provided it is within mobility or where they have indicated they are willing to travel outside of mobility. Any relevant personal circumstances and reasonable adjustment considerations are being taken into account in considering someone’s ability to relocate or be redeployed. Individuals are contractually obliged to accept another suitable post within the department that is within their contracted mobility.
50.Clear guidance has been provided along with ongoing support from HR Business Partners to individuals and their Line Managers to provide clarity of expectations about ability to relocate and options available.
51.In a small number of cases relocation and redeployment may be difficult. We will seek to relocate or offer alternative roles to all such employees. But in some cases, this may not be reasonable and redundancies may be required. At this point we are unable to confirm whether redundancies would be voluntary or compulsory.
Committee Recommendation
52.We also recommend that the Government works closely with unions and staff directly to provide adequate opportunities for retraining and support with relocation to those staff being asked to change roles or location as a result of this policy.
Government Response
53.We have engaged closely with Departmental Trade Union Sides throughout the lifecycle of the programme at a national and local level.
54.Following proposal announcements in January all colleagues in sites impacted were given an opportunity to have a one-to-one discussion with their line manager, to understand their personal circumstances and their ability to relocate and highlight any specific concerns or individual needs.
55.Following confirmation of final decisions in July, Line Managers continued these one to one conversations, the outputs of which are identifying colleagues who are able to move and those who are not (and therefore may be at risk of redundancy and with whom we are consulting further) and we are actively seeking to redeploy into a new role. Guidance and support is being and will continue to be provided to individuals and their Line Managers throughout this process to provide clarity of options and support available.
56.Where we are able to redeploy our people, we will provide necessary learning and development to enable them to take up their new role.
57.DWP HR are providing delivery of redeployment and, where necessary, exit mechanisms along with HR support and advice. DWP HR are also part of the cross Government Recruitment and Redeployment Working Group and are working closely with other government departments at national and regional levels to identify any potential options that could secure redeployment opportunities for our people.
17 October 2017