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Welfare Reform Bill

We now come to an even knottier problem: what exactly is going on in jobcentres up and down the country? I have suggested that we insert the words of this amendment at page 4, line 16, and I was very pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has added her name to it. As discussions on new proposed new Section 17A have shown, the Government, with the backing of my party, are embarking on what by any standard is a huge and complicated endeavour—getting millions of people back into work in any of the past 10 years would not be quite so daunting as it is at present. Given that unemployment decreases always lag behind any growth in GDP, this huge task must start in each case with human contact, personal understanding and tailored support, on which we have amendments a bit later. Throughout our debates in the last two sittings we have had those thoughts as the background to our speeches. The time has come to crystallise those thoughts into a single narrative—that is, the type of person, and his work parameters, within Jobcentre Plus. Clearly the jobseeker cannot have the required contact, who is unable to give personal understanding and tailored support without an aid—a minder, if you like. This aid is called his personal adviser and is to be found in a jobcentre. Jobcentres have been on my mind ever since becoming a health and social services Minister in the Northern Ireland Office. I set myself the goal of visiting each of the then 23 jobcentres in the Province. Alas, I was decommissioned before I could achieve it. I did, however, manage to visit the majority, including the Falls Road—but that is another story. On the whole, I expressed myself as confident that what they were doing was both needed and effective. Under this Bill, each personal adviser will have a number—presumably a very large number at the moment, though hopefully it will decrease in due course—of jobseekers on his or perhaps the jobcentre’s books. He is, as I said, already working in some capacity in the local jobcentre—within, that is, its remit and current practices. My honourable friends and I have been investigating what happens now in jobcentres. The unemployed individual enters. After some time, because there is likely to be a queue, he is seen by a job adviser. Although the latter has a number of jobs available, it is unlikely that there will be a vacancy suitable for the individual. The Minister should tell us how many of the 1,464,100 people claiming JSA on the last occasion that my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy asked about the unemployment figures—22 April—accepted jobs that were actually advertised in jobcentres. Does he feel that all local job vacancies are known to job advisers? I was told that one jobcentre did not even know what public service or council jobs were available locally. That is not a happy picture, as I am sure noble Lords will agree. The net result of such interviews, especially in these straitened times, is highly unlikely to be fruitful in that rarely will the jobseeker be offered an interview for a job. What is next? The answer is that he will be referred to a financial adviser. In most cases, he or she will be advised to claim jobseeker’s allowance. To achieve this, he then has to telephone the contact centre, and when eventually he gets through, he will have to give the information he has given to the two previous advisers all over again. The claim for JSA is then sent to the delivery centre. At present, I am told, there is a massive processing backlog and it is many days before the individual gets any benefit. Often he will have to apply for a crisis loan from the Social Fund, in the course of which he will have to repeat his circumstances yet again. In the future this may be contracted out under Clause 15 of the Bill, which we will come to, and no doubt occasion still more delay. What is the current time between applying for JSA and actually receiving it? What a system to cope with the deepest recession in living memory. It is both time-consuming and repetitive, and suggests that the 19th century is alive and kicking. Can you imagine the frustration this causes to jobcentre front-line staff who are, to a man and woman, dedicated to helping unemployed people? Can you imagine, too, the stress of these hoops that the jobseeker has to go through? It is almost as though the system is designed to put people off. I do not believe that for a moment, but what I do believe is that the jobcentre has become dysfunctional. Part of the problem is the Government’s box-ticking and target mentality. Every weekday, thousands of job-focused interviews take place and no doubt all the targets are met and the boxes ticked, but how demoralising it must be for the staff. It is not their fault that their clients do not find a job, and it is not the client’s fault either. However, it is within their remit to make the system more user-friendly unless, of course, directions have to be given from on high, meaning Whitehall. I rather hope that that is not required. Ministers claim that all is well. Jobcentres are doing the best they can, yet how many jobcentres have been closed in the past year and how much has been spent on refurbishing the remainder? How many jobcentre jobs have been made redundant? This has sensibly stopped because of the severity of the recession, but the system I have described goes on. In this age of instant communication by computer, is it really necessary for the jobseeker to have to repeat his details again and again? What I have described is what is happening now. Proposed new Section 17A tacks on yet more work to a system which, to coin a phrase, is already not fit for purpose. Is personal advice a new job description or is the role of the personal adviser to be carried out by the existing job advisers? My own view is that they are two completely separate jobs and should be seen as such. After the jobseeker has seen a job adviser—not necessarily the same one—numerous times, he will be referred to a personal adviser. What will the personal adviser know about him? On current form at jobcentres, the answer will be "nothing at all" until the jobseeker goes through his work history, if any, and his long period of unemployment. These facts will no doubt have been repeated time and again over however many years he has had contact with the jobcentre. How many millions of pounds have this Government spent on computers in jobcentres since 1997? Why are they not used to short-circuit what, by any definition, is a burdensome process to DWP staff and jobseekers alike? Combing through pages 1 and 2 of the Bill, we have learnt a lot about the relationship between the unemployed person and the personal adviser. We have learnt about the sort of things that the personal adviser suggests are appropriate in moving his client closer to the job market. However, we have not heard about the context in which the personal adviser is doing his job. Before I finish with this amendment, I wish to say how grateful I am to the Minister for the letter with case studies that I received on Thursday morning. Not surprisingly, all of them are best-case scenarios with a happy ending in each example. They all show without peradventure the sensitive and continuing involvement of the case officer, now known as the personal adviser. This is even more vital when we get to Clause 2. We need to be assured that this will not overload an already busy jobcentre which already suffers from the hang-ups that I have described and that personal advisers will be properly trained for the work that they are to undertake. I understand that this training is to comprise a three-day course. How on earth personal advisers can possibly detect the effect of drug addiction or mental health after such a short time beggars description. I hope that I am wrong about the three-day course and that the Minister will slap me down. On that basis, I beg to move.