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Welfare Reform Bill

This has been an interesting if somewhat extensive debate around a range of issues which focused on training. If I may, I should like to deal in more detail with training in respect of mental health and learning disabilities when we consider those amendments shortly. I can deal with them now if noble Lords so desire. This amendment is focused on the "work for your benefit" provisions of Clause 1 which, obviously, we shall start by piloting. With respect, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, conflated the routine procedures and process through the JSA route. People to whom "work for your benefit" will be relevant will in general have been in the system for two years. These are not new claimants but people who would be known to Jobcentre Plus and have gone through the three stages and the Flexible New Deal and then moved on to "work for your benefit". I am bound to say that some of the descriptions I have heard of what happens in Jobcentre Plus offices do not match the reports that I get or indeed my own experience of visiting such offices. I know that when you go on a visit as a Minister you do not necessarily see things warts and all, but you get a chance to talk to people and get a flavour of the situation. I do not know if my noble friend Lady Turner has had the opportunity recently to get around a number of Jobcentre Plus offices, but the configuration of them has changed dramatically. They do not have the old grilles in place; they have been refurbished. It was a successful refurbishment programme, and both customers and staff see the benefit. There was some apprehension at the start of the process when the grilles were going and people felt that they might be vulnerable, but I understand that the reverse has proved to be the case. I offer some statistics about the scope of Jobcentre Plus. It records about 5,200 of its customers moving into work every day. It receives over 7,600 jobs from employers. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale: no, of course the Jobcentre Plus system does not include all vacancies that exist in the economy; obviously it accepts all those that are reported to it, but it does not routinely go and try to identify every vacancy that there is. Jobcentre Plus advisers conduct something like 45,000 interviews every working day. It processes 16,000 new benefit claims every working day, and prosecutes 42 people for benefit fraud. It takes over 60,000 calls every weekday at our contact centres. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, with regard to the idea of people turning up at Jobcentre Plus offices and queues forming, that overwhelmingly the process is that people contact the contact centre and are given a date and time for their appointment, to prevent what the noble Lord suggested from happening. There will still be people who just turn up routinely, but the process is to go through a contact centre to get a date for your appointment.