Minority Report

This week, a report was released by Citizens Advice entitled 'Responsive Welfare', setting out what 'we' think is needed to reform 'welfare' in the UK.  There's a link here:

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_20150128

This report has not been well-received at my workplace.  It appears to be founded on a false premise - that what makes 'welfare' unpopular with the public isn't the relentless output of 'Poverty Porn' on TV and 'cheating scrounger' stories in the press, but the real problems people encounter when they seek to claim benefits.   

This ignores the fact that most of the population don’t claim benefits and rely on the media to tell them what it involves, giving estimates that are far too high of what they believe benefit rates to be and exaggerating the percentage of benefits lost to fraud by a factor of 386 when asked to guess that.  Because the media tells them lies about scroungers, advisers regularly see clients who believe that it’s right to ‘crack down on the cheats’ - though 'genuine' people (like them) should be left alone.  It also excuses Citizens Advice from any duty to engage in 'myth-busting'; this is alleged to be 'counter-productive, so presumably we also stop challenging racism and other forms of discrimination?

The three prongs of Citizens Advice's reform are greater localisation, more scope for discretion in benefits administration and better use of information technology - resulting in a state where 'welfare' stops being a 'political football' and becomes something we can all take pride in again.

The idea that ‘welfare’ stops being a ‘political football’ by being localised is demonstrably wrong.  Stoke-on-Trent’s decision to opt for a 30% minimum Council Tax payment from working age people was highly political (whether the motive was to highlight Government cuts, discourage poor people from moving here or another) with the result that the people CitA believe are best placed to make sound decisions for the benefit of their locality have seen over 21,000 liability orders made for Council Tax arrears in the last 12 months; many of the people concerned are entirely unable to pay.  

Without substantial additional funding, local government will continue to blame national government for any failings, even those (as above) it brings upon itself.  There is no mechanism to improve accountability, as the groups most likely to see cuts or tougher conditionality often don’t vote and don’t have any major party nationally or locally defending their rights.  While you can say the same of national government, at least there are national charities and interest groups who can and do challenge bad policy - several charities focused on mental health have been outspoken in their criticism of ESA.

 

The pace at which the game of 'political football' is played in the 'League One' of local government is often faster than in the 'Premiership' of national politics too.  National governments change every 5 years – local councils in some areas might shift the balance of power annually.  Therefore the risk of having stop-start social security policies is actually much higher through decentralisation.  I suspect the authors of this report never stopped to imagine what a benefits system decentralised to a UKIP-controlled or dominated council might look like.  Perhaps they fondly imagine councils will ask their local CAB to devise and manage their 'welfare' scheme?  In which case, to whom would a claimant look if they wished to challenge a decision?  And how brave a 'critical friend' can a CAB be to a council making bad benefits policy, without fearing for its funding?

Another illogical feature of localisation is the ‘postcode lottery’, which could leave people in identical circumstances living either side of a council boundary entitled to entirely different support, as we see with the piecemeal roll-out of Universal Credit.  We might very well see a ‘race to the bottom’ in hard-pressed regions.  No council would bring in policies which might be a ‘magnet’ to benefit claimants; this (real or imagined) risk would make it easy for local politicians to play the same game as national politicians regarding EEA migrants’ benefit rights - if 'they' come here because our benefits are too generous, then we must cut benefits!  There might be attempts to introduce residence conditions, which would restrict opportunities to move to find better job opportunities or other life chances.  

That whole argument around 'welfare' and job creation simply perpetuates the myth that people 'choose' benefits rather than work and that cuts to benefits are needed to make low-paid work more attractive.  Better pay and working conditions make jobs attractive - if £72.40 a week looks better than a job offer, there is something very wrong indeed with that job!  If 'welfare' policy existed to shore up economic policies, as this report encourages, why would you offer generous benefits for sick or disabled people?  Councillors and officers would be careful not to speak it aloud, but why encourage people to live in your area who might add to your social care costs?

The report claims to oppose cuts, but allowing local benefit rates to reflect wages and work opportunities gives the excuse for them and one example explicitly endorses them:

Greater Manchester would have a simple statutory responsibility for using this funding to promote core social objectives.  Within a fixed budget they could use the framework of existing benefits, or they could adjust the design of those benefits. They could reduce unemployment benefits for young people, for example, in order to strengthen incentives to work or stay in education, as part of a wider skills and labour market strategy. (p 17)

The last time I looked, ‘unemployment benefits’ for young people were inhumanely low already; it’s shameful for CitA, of all organisations, to suggest it might be legitimate to cut still further.  But perhaps I should not be surprised after their suggestion that the taper for Universal Credit should be steeper and that low-paid childless people should pick up the tab for a slightly improved allowance for working parents, rather improve this benefit for all and shift the burden higher up the income scale?

Improving digital services is a laudable aim, if it really does free staff for better face-to-face interaction, but what is happening within the DWP, HMRC and local government is digital systems (and under-skilled call-centre staff) are used to cut staff and costs, resulting in a poorer quality service.   This document dodges the real issue regarding poor ‘welfare’ customer service – falling numbers of skilled, experienced staff and an exodus of those not in step with IDS's tune.  

An example quoted concerning the ‘severe disability premium’, which supposedly illustrated the need for better digital services, actually shows the need for interaction with real people, as it is doubtful that this client would have been able to navigate a computer-based system unaided any better than a couple of forms.  The examples quoted around sanctions, supposedly demonstrating the benefits of greater discretion and independence, actual prove the opposite.  Clients, support workers, library staff and others have all raised issues around particular members of JC+ staff being keener to hand down sanctions than others.  'Discretion' is a two-edged sword – it can very easily become discrimination and it is almost impossible to challenge effectively.

In fact one of my biggest fears with all this is the authors’ alarming keenness to move away from a rights-based system.  Whatever the faults and failing of the current Social Security system, claimants do have enforceable rights, and these are the same throughout the country.  This enables organisations like CAB, CPAG, Disability Rights and others to provide training and resources, enabling professional advisers, volunteers and claimants themselves to find out about their rights and access them.  Bad law and regulation can and is challenged through the tribunal and upper tribunal system.  If this is working less well now than a while back, the cause is lack of funding for specialist advice and tribunal representation – not a need for more unaccountable ‘discretion’. 

That would be impossible with numerous localised systems subject to constant change.  Advice workers could realistically only really know one or two local schemes well, and could not swap strategies and ideas with their counterparts elsewhere.  National information and training organisations would struggle to provide effective support, national campaigning organisations would lose power and influence.  The online forums that enable isolated victims of 'welfare reform' to share their stories and swap information would be far less help to their users if Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle-under-Lyme had different qualifying conditions for quite different sickness benefits.  Where do claimants seek redress in the event of an incorrect local decision?  Housing Benefit appeals were brought within the Tribunals Service and away from councillors for the sake of independence and transparency.

If I were a government looking to rip the guts out of the campaigning side of the voluntary sector and keep claimants isolated and ignorant, I would indeed be missing a trick not to take up these ideas.