Draft Social Security (Lone
Parents and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2008
Summary: Currently, a lone parent may be entitled
to Income Support (IS) solely on the ground that they are responsible
for a child aged under 16. These Regulations propose to lower
the entitlement threshold immediately to include only lone parents
whose youngest child is under 12 and then to phase in further
extensions of the requirement so that, from 26 October 2009, only
those whose youngest child is under 10 will be eligible and from
25 October 2010 only those whose youngest child is under 7. Parents
of children above the threshold age will instead be required to
claim Jobseeker's Allowance which is conditional on a person being
willing to take up work and actively seeking employment. The Government's
policy intention is clearly stated and these Regulations seek
to implement it. However, some clarification is required about
the practicalities of how the system will operate and whether
the proposed pace of implementation is feasible, particularly
in how it relates to the roll-out of "wrap-around childcare".
The proposals, particularly in relation to younger children, those
with special needs and those being educated at home, are contentious
and the House may be interested in finding out more about how
official discretion will be applied and how the DWP proposals
may be reconciled with the DCSF's policy objectives.
These Regulations are drawn to the special attention
of the House on the ground that they give rise to issues of public
policy likely to be of interest to the House.
1. These draft Regulations have been laid by
the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) under provisions of
the Social Security Administration Act 1992, the Social Security
Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, the Jobseekers Act 1995 and
the Welfare Reform Act 2007. They are laid with an Explanatory
Memorandum (EM) and an Impact Assessment (IA). We commend this
supporting documentation which presents its case in a more thorough
way than the DWP material on which we commented in our 28th Report.
In addition a report has been produced by the Social Security
Advisory Committee (SSAC), a statutory consultee, which comments
on the proposals (Command Paper Cm 7480).
2. Currently, a lone parent may be entitled to
Income Support (IS) solely on the ground that they are responsible
for a child aged under 16 who is a member of their household.
Since October 2005, most lone parents who claim IS have been required
to participate in Work Focused Interviews every six months to
prepare for employment in the future. However, they are currently
not required to look for paid work in order to claim IS and any
work-related training is voluntary.
3. These Regulations propose to amend the Income
Support (General) Regulations 1987 (SI 1987/1967) so that only
lone parents with a youngest child aged under 12 will be entitled
to IS. They also propose to phase in further extensions of the
requirement so that, from 26 October 2009, only those whose youngest
child is under 10 will be eligible for IS and from 25 October
2010 only those whose youngest child is under 7. These parents
will instead be required to claim Jobseekers Allowance which is
conditional on a person being willing to take up and actively
seeking employment.
4. The Regulations also provide for certain exemptions
so that, for example, lone parents with a disability premium who
cease to be entitled to IS due to these Regulations may claim
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). They also amend the Jobseeker's
Allowance Regulations 1996 (SI 1996/207) to allow additional discretion
for officials when determining whether lone parents had just cause
for leaving employment, good cause for failing to take up paid
employment or to comply with a jobseeker's direction, and their
eligibility for hardship payments. Where employment is refused
without good cause sanctions will apply.
5. The Government say that the policy objective
is to increase lone parent employment and reduce child poverty.
The EM offers evidence from a number of pieces of research in
support of this objective. For example, it states that the current
approach, based solely on voluntary participation, has helped
to increase the lone parent employment rate by 11.6 percentage
points to 56.3 per cent. In its response to the SSAC, the Government
stated that "58 per cent of children in non-working lone
parent families live in poverty, compared to 19 per cent of children
of lone parents working part-time and 7 per cent of those working
full-time" (Command Paper page 4 paragraph 20).
6. The ability to cut poverty through further
increasing lone parent employment rates is however closely connected
with the provision of adequate childcare. The SSAC report points
out that the target date for providing "wrap around care"
is only 2010 and there are currently some significant gaps in
provision, notably during school holidays (Command Paper page
24 paragraph 5.11). Some of the assumptions are based on similar
programmes in other countries but those with the lowest lone parent
poverty rates (eg Scandinavia, Netherlands, see Command Paper
page 111) tend to be those which are reputed to have the best
childcare provision. The SSAC report also questions whether the
"better off in work" calculations take a sufficiently
broad overview of potential impacts (see, for example, Command
Paper page 24 paragraph 5.10, dealing with loss of free school
meals and free prescriptions).
7. The IA explains, with costings, the impact
of the change on the staff of Jobcentre Plus and on claimants.
We note from the Equality Impact Assessment (included in the IA)
the different impacts on women and people from ethnic minorities
claiming benefit as a lone parent and what Jobcentre Plus aims
to do to address this. We are particularly concerned to note that
those lone parents who have also been claiming disability premium
on IS will be financially worse off under the new arrangements
despite the measures in the Regulations to mitigate this (IA page
10 Risk of negative impact).
8. The EM responds to criticisms of the proposal
by saying that Jobcentre Plus staff will have extra discretion
so that a lone parent will not be penalised if appropriate and
affordable childcare is not available (paragraph 7.10). Paragraph
7.16 of the EM says that detailed guidance on both regulatory
and operational changes will be provided to Jobcentre Plus staff
and decision makers on the application of the Jobseeker's Allowance
regime to parents. However the House may wish to press
for more details on what the guidance will say on how discretion
should be exercised and how the DWP intend to ensure that it is
exercised consistently in different parts of the country.
Given that the first stage of the change is proposed to come into
effect on the day after the affirmative Regulations are made,
the House may also wish to inquire about the timetable for
delivering training to staff so that the first lone parent claimants
receive the full range of support and discretion which the Department
propose to offer.
9. The ability of the Department to deliver the
levels of service and the increased numbers of interviews required
through Jobcentre Plus staff that the programme of change will
demand is one of the key questions raised by the SSAC report.
They suggest that the initial stage be evaluated before implementation
is extended to other groups. The Government response (Command
Paper page 7) indicates that, although they will not go that far,
they are willing to modify the timetable for implementation to
deal only with new claims from November 2008 and leave the conversion
of continuing claims from those with children aged 12-15 to 2009.
An Annex setting out their revised proposals is set out at page
12 of the Command Paper and has been transposed by Schedule 1
of the Regulations.
10. The SSAC report expresses concern about who
should determine whether childcare arrangements are suitable (Command
Paper page 25 paragraph 5.13). A number of representations received
by the Committee have also highlighted concerns that parents may
be penalised under the Jobseeker's Allowance regime for refusing
a job because there is no suitable childcare available for their
child. Issues raised include lack of local availability of such
care (particularly for children with special needs or in rural
areas), its cost in relation to the amount the parent will earn
from the employment proposed and who is to judge if it is suitable
for the individual child involved. A number of the submissions
we received questioned whether these Regulations would put the
ultimate decision into the hands of a member of Jobcentre Plus
staff, in conflict with the Government's policy objective as stated
in the December 2004 Paper Choices for Parents; the best start
for Children which has as a central principle: "The
legitimate expectations of families that they should be in control
of the choices they make in balancing work and family life"[1].
Submissions also quoted a statement in correspondence from John
Hutton MP, when Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, that
said: "We have been very clear that we are not proposing
to force lone parents into work, not cut lone parent benefits
- this would be wrong in principle and damaging to the health
and well-being of children. It is a matter of individual choice
for each lone parent as to whether they look to move into work
or continue to claim benefits"[2].
11. The Committee also received a number of representations
from people who educate their children at home[3].
These emphasized that their decision to do so was not simply a
lifestyle choice but responded to special needs, disability or
bullying which meant their child was not catered for effectively
within the mainstream school system. They argued that they should
be exempted from the requirement to make themselves available
for work as a condition of receiving benefit, as the requirement
to work was in conflict with section 7 of the Education Act 1996
which explicitly places a duty on the parent to provide their
child with full-time education "either by regular attendance
at school or otherwise". In correspondence DWP Ministers
have made it clear that it is not their intention to provide such
an exemption[4]. The
House may wish to explore how the DWP proposals may be reconciled
with the DCSF's policy objective.
CONCLUSION
12. The Government's policy intention is clearly
stated and these Regulations seek to implement it. However, some
clarification is required about the practicalities of how the
system will operate and whether the proposed pace of implementation
is feasible. The proposals, particularly in relation to younger
children, those with special needs and those being educated at
home, are contentious and the House may be interested in finding
out more about how official discretion will be applied.
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