I will attempt to set the scene for the debate, which focuses on three interlinked topics: the Welfare Reform Committee’s report on the new more severe sanctions regime that is being operated by the Department for Work and Pensions; the committee’s report on food banks and the link between the growth in their use and welfare reforms; and the Smith commission agreement on further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament.
Although this is the last debate before Christmas, I am afraid that some of what I have to say will not be very merry. The tone will perhaps be a little Dickensian and more in tune with “A Christmas Carol” than with any Christmas cheer.
Let us look first at sanctions and the view that the committee came to in its report. However, before I start, I should say that the views that I will express were agreed by the committee and published in the report, although members will be unsurprised to hear that committee member Alex Johnstone demurred on the findings.
In late 2012, the Department for Work and Pensions introduced a new benefit sanctions regime that increased the severity of sanctions for people who are on jobseekers allowance and employment support allowance. Under the regime, claimants may be sanctioned for up to three years. You heard me right, Presiding Officer: they can be sanctioned for up to three years. Before members think that that is just a notional level of sanction, the last time we checked the figures 79 people in Scotland had been sanctioned for three years.
The new regime has led to a significant increase in the number of sanctions that are being applied, despite the fact that numbers of people on the relevant benefits have dropped. The rate of sanctioning for jobseekers allowance increased rapidly through 2013 from 3 per cent at the start of the year to 5.7 per cent at the end of it.
As part of our inquiry, we invited a senior DWP official to give evidence on their views of the sanctions regime. In fact, we have invited DWP ministers but, over two years, we have failed to convince any of them to give evidence in public to the committee. That rather saddens me. Perhaps in the post-referendum era we will be more successful.
We took evidence from Neil Couling, who is the most senior United Kingdom official responsible for jobcentres. I think that it would be fair to say that his evidence rather took us aback. He reported:
“many benefit recipients welcome the jolt that a sanction can give them ... Some people no doubt react very badly to being sanctioned—we see some very strong reactions—but others recognise that it is the wake-up call that they needed, and it helps them get back into work.”—[Official Report, Welfare Reform Committee, 29 April 2014; c 1452.]
He also suggested that jobcentres receive thank you cards from sanctioned claimants.
I have to say, having taken significant evidence, including at first hand from people who have been sanctioned, that the committee does not recognise that description of the sanctions regime. Instead, we see many weaknesses in the regime and in its application. Those are leading to a climate of fear around jobcentres, rather than one that encourages people to engage with them and find their way back to work.
In our report, we list seven weaknesses in the system. I will repeat them. There has been
“A consistent failure to notify people that they are being sanctioned and why.”
I will come back to that. There has been
“A lack of flexibility”
in the application and, indeed,
“misapplication of sanctions reducing the likelihood of people finding work.
There has been
”A failure to appreciate that many people on benefits just do not have the necessary IT skills ... to use the DWP’s Universal Jobmatch facility”
which is often a condition of benefit.
There was also
“A failure to make those sanctioned aware of the availability of hardship payments”
The DWP is apparently unable to provide figures for the number of people who receive hardship payments. There has been
“The consistent triggering of a stop in housing benefit as a result of a sanction, which should not happen”,
but does,
“and can lead to significant debt being incurred even for a minor sanction.
There is
“The lack of a deadline for decision-making on DWP reconsiderations, leading to delays in redressing wrong decisions”
and finally, there has been
“shunting of the costs of dealing with sanctioned claimants on to other agencies: local authorities; health boards; third sector agencies; etc.”
Perhaps the most serious of the weaknesses is the first—the failure to tell people that they have been sanctioned. We learned that it seems to be a common occurrence that people first realise that they have been sanctioned when they go to a hole in the wall and cannot get any money.
It turns out, that for some sanctions, there is not even a duty to tell people that they have been sanctioned. How on earth can sanctions work to encourage patterns of behaviour if people are not told that they have been sanctioned or why?
The weaknesses of the current sanctions regime are reflected in the outcomes of reviews of sanctions decisions. The statistics can be read in many ways, but four in 10 decisions to apply a sanction are overturned on review. There has been some debate about whether formal targets for the number of sanctions exist—some people argue that they do, but the DWP is clear that they do not. What is clear to the committee, however, is that whether or not formal targets exist, there is now a deliberate policy to drive up the number of sanctions to previously unheard-of levels, through managerial pressure on jobcentre staff.
The committee is not automatically opposed to a benefits system that incorporates conditionality, but we share the view of Citizens Advice Scotland that sanctions must be used only as a last resort for people who have consistently and deliberately refused to engage with jobseeking requirements without good reason. We believe that if sanctions are to be used they should be applied appropriately, consistently and with greater levels of discretion and support. We believe that the current operation of the sanctions regime is not in line with those principles.
Sanctions are also disproportionately affecting some of the most vulnerable groups of claimants—in particular, the disabled, single parents and young people, including those who have recently left care. In many cases, rather than being the driver to get people back into work that the DWP claims they are, sanctions are getting in the way of people getting back to work. In its report, the committee makes a number of suggestions for improvements to the operation of the sanctions regime. More important than those, however, is the need for a sea change in the culture of the policy from being punitive to being supportive.
Another key aspect of our recent work has been food banks. We found that welfare reform is a significant cause of the rise in demand that is being experienced by providers of food aid. We strongly contest the United Kingdom Government’s assertion that the growth in use of food banks is due solely to increased publicity and people choosing to use food banks as an economic choice. We found that there was a 400 per cent rise from the previous year in the number of people who were receiving assistance from food banks. A staggering 71,000 people—more than 49,000 adults and 22,000 children—were using Scottish Trussell Trust food banks. That is 22,000 children asking, “Please, sir—can I have some more?”
Our views have been supported by recent evidence. The Trussell Trust’s most recent figures for Scotland, covering the period from April to September 2014, show that food bank use has increased by 124 per cent over the previous year’s figure. Benefit issues are a major contributor to that increase, with 28 per cent of those who attend food banks doing so because of benefit delays and 18 per cent doing so because of benefit changes. Almost half the people who are attending Trussell Trust food banks in Scotland are doing so because of welfare issues.