Key points
- Many lone parents want to work long before it is compulsory for them to do so but find themselves facing many barriers. Citizens Advice argues that providing support to overcome these barriers is far more effective in getting people into sustainable work than threatening to cut their benefits.
- We recommend that work focused interviews (WFIs) should be better designed to meet the needs of the claimants, including: more user-friendly notification; appropriate timing; personalised approach to support; and flexibility when clients cannot attend for good reason. Attendance should be encouraged by promotion of their value rather than inappropriate threats of benefit sanctions.
- Sanctions under the JSA regime are severe and pose significant risks to families. We fully support the intention of Jobcentre Plus to contact all lone parents before applying any sanctions, and propose that this commitment is enshrined in regulations. The administration of sanctions must also be improved.
- DWP has put forward a number of proposals to help ensure families are able to comply with the JSA regime and do not therefore face hardship as a result of a sanction. We welcome the new flexibilities introduced into the JSA regime but believe that they will not be effective unless Jobcentre Plus provide specialist lone parent advisers for all claimants.
- DWP must improvements the administration and take up of in-work benefits
- Lone parents in receipt of disability premium through receipt of DLA must be helped to claim on grounds of disability in advance of the introduction of ESA. We would like to see Jobcentre Plus setting a high target for changed claims.
- Jobcentre Plus must provide complete advice and information on a parent’s financial position on moving into work. Better off calculations must include as a minimum: an assessment of the loss of passported benefits; extra travel costs; childcare costs; and the drop in tax credit income in the second year of return to work and the finite nature of the in work credit. The process should also identify and assist with claims for housing and council tax benefit and any other local assistance such as school uniform grants.
- In-work support. Securing employment is only the start. CAB evidence finds that many people find it difficult to juggle their work and home responsibilities and continued help from their personal adviser after they moved into work can provide important help during the transition period.
- We hope that DWP will apply lessons learnt from the ongoing evaluation of the Employment Retention and Advancement programme (ERA), which was tailored for lone parents, and highlights some of the specific barriers encountered by this group, both in entering and sustaining work.
- Experience from previous changes within DWP indicate the importance of appropriate training for Jobcentre Plus staff in advance of the programme delivery.
- We welcome the intention to thoroughly evaluate the service, but would like reassurance that lessons learnt will be applied before delivery begins
Detailed comments
Withdrawing entitlement to income support for lone parents of older children
Withdrawing entitlement to income support from lone parents of older children appears to be based on the assumption that further growth in the employment rate is limited not by barriers faced by lone parents, but by an unwillingness to engage. Yet there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case. One Parent Families point out that 66% of parents with children over eleven are already working and of those not working and claiming IS, one quarter are caring for a disabled child and one half have a health condition or disability1. The Harker report concluded that greater conditionality was only appropriate in the context of better support and childcare: ‘if a stronger package of support for lone parents was in place and lone parents genuinely had access to affordable childcare and work that fits with their family commitments, there would be grounds for extending conditionality.’2 Citizens Advice Bureaux report that many parents are eager to return to work but are prevented from doing so by a number of barriers including:
- Extra costs associated with doing so will not be met by the relatively small increases in their income.
- Lack of access to childcare appropriate for their needs.
- Lack of confidence in the ability of the benefits and tax credits systems to adjust to changes in circumstances, preventing gaps in household income when parents move from benefits into work. Bad experience of moving into work will damage confidence to move off benefits again.
- Lack of flexibility on the part of employers to accommodate employees’ family commitments and travel needs.
- Lack of training to develop skills to help the move into sustainable work, improving job prospects in the longer term.
Citizens Advice believes that greater success in achieving the 70 per cent lone parent employment rate will be achieved by a better understanding of, and a focus on, addressing the barriers to engagement in the labour market, rather than increasing obligations to engage.
Work focussed interviews (WFIs)
Regular contact with Jobcentre Plus throughout the period of claiming benefits is helpful in ensuring that claimants are ready for work when their circumstances allow. In the past CABx have helped many clients who have had very little contact with the labour market for years and found themselves totally unprepared for their youngest child’s sixteenth birthday when they were simply told their benefits would stop. In our response to the 2006 Welfare Reform Green Paper that proposed increasing the frequency of work focused interviews, we stressed the importance of quality over quantity. We stressed that ‘how’ Jobcentre Plus operate WFIs, was more important than ‘how often’, and we highlighted both DWP research and CAB evidence of poor quality standardised contact with lone parents which is often counterproductive.
DWP research with lone parents found varied views of work focused interviews, but many reported responding negatively to a WFI invitation. “Some felt ‘pressurised’ to attend the interview and in some instances perceived the WFI invitation to be coercive in nature, an approach they did not like.” Many felt that the interviews were inappropriate for two main reasons 1) personal circumstances such as illness or caring responsibilities and 2) childcare1. Others felt concerned that they would be forced into employment. CAB evidence suggests that the letters are insufficiently tailored to the individual and their circumstances. In particular lone parents with very young children feel pressurised by both the letters inviting attendance at WFIs, and to consider work. We do not believe that this is helpful in moving lone parents closer to the labour market.
One lone parent visited her CAB after having received a letter inviting her to a work focussed interview. She had a one year old child and was worried that she would be forced into finding work immediately even though she had been planning to wait until the child was two years old when she could use a nursery rather than a childminder. A North of Scotland CAB
A pregnant lone parent with a two year old, visited a London CAB after her work focussed interview. She was stressed and harassed after being advised that the interview was compulsory and that she would have to get a job. She didn’t know how she could do this with her young children.
A London CAB was helping a lone parent with a six month old baby. She suffered long term severe depression and was really stressed by being pressurised to attend a work focussed interview. She felt that it was inappropriate for her as her baby was so young and her health so bad. She was worried about her benefits being cut and the stress was having a negative effect on her health.
Another bureau highlighted the inappropriate use of a standard letter to a disabled lone parent with five children, three of whom had disabilities. The prime emphasis of the letter was to stress her need to discuss work or have her benefits cut. This was completely inappropriate to her circumstances, as was recognised by the personal adviser as soon as the CAB spoke to them.
Many lone parents are living on a very low income, struggling to manage their finances and are therefore very vulnerable, so the need for personal support is very apparent. One CAB reported helping a client with her finances and found that her income support was reduced because of a sanction for failing to attend a work focussed interview. She was pregnant and didn’t realise attendance was necessary, thinking that the drop in her benefit was linked to her social fund loan repayment. The adviser stressed that a phone call to this client would have been really helpful, as she lacked confidence to ring the number on the letter, having no named contact and not knowing her personal adviser.
Jobcentre Plus faces a difficult challenge in communicating the purpose of a work focussed interview. The focus on the mandatory nature of interviews can send mixed messages about the real purpose of the interviews. Are they primarily about placing extra responsibilities on claimants or are they to provide support to return to work? Research shows that support works best in a voluntary and informal environment where lone parents believe that they are receiving support rather than just meeting obligations.
Focusing resources on providing mandatory work focussed interviews can send the message that their purpose is primarily about getting claimants to jump through hoops rather than providing help to go back into work. One lone parent supported with her finances through a CAB Horizons project, felt that she wasn’t being given any help by Jobcentre Plus to return to work – that they had no time outside her six monthly compulsory work focused interview. “if it’s not on the computer [your work focused interview date] they don’t want to know. If you want to see them, they are not there - they don’t want to help you.”
Another client complained that she felt her personal adviser saw supermarket work as her best option.
He just scrolls through and says, ‘you don’t want to do that and you can’t do that...we’ve got nothing for you.’ You can’t read what’s on the screen because he’s scrolling through that fast and you don’t know whether you would consider having the job that he’s dismissing. I’m not saying they're all like that. They seem not to have a clue and don’t know what I’m qualified for. He seems to have got me pegged for shelf filling in supermarkets and didn’t consider anything else – his decision, not mine. Lone parent of teenage children looking for full time work.
New resources for WFIs should therefore be channelled to enable Jobcentre Plus offices to have the flexibility to provide support in a way that meets the needs of its claimants. If the support meets the needs of the claimants it should not be necessary to increase the obligations with threats of sanctions. The skills and sensitivity of the personal adviser are crucial - as are the resources available to them.
Personal advisers must have sufficient training to enable them to carry out interviews in a personalised and sensitive manner, recognising each claimant’s own barriers to employment, whether it be a skills gap or childcare issues and whether they are perceived or actual. The personal adviser must have the capacity to send personalised letters rather than sending a letter which they know will not be relevant to the claimant’s own situation and could therefore be counterproductive and damage long-term motivation. It should not be necessary to use standard letters, as personal advisers should have access to claimant records. We would like to see a move away from a standard pattern of contact that varies only in frequency and a move towards a personalised approach. It is better for a claimant to have a personalised interview every six months with a personal adviser who is resourced to offer appropriate support than more frequent but inappropriate or standard contact.
The invitation letters to claimants must focus on the merits of attending rather than on the sanctions for non-attendance. WFIs can be of value even for claimants for whom work is not an imminent option, but invitation letters must make it clear that they will not face undue pressure to return to work. CABx have seen many clients who fear being sanctioned or who have actually been sanctioned inappropriately for failing to attend a WFI. It is not uncommon for bureaux to report claimants who have contacted them worried about their ability to attend and also worried about a sanction, only for the personal adviser to tell them to disregard the letter, as it was ‘just standard’.
Sanctions
The Government argue that sanctions are necessary to ensure that claimants take up the offer of support to return to work. Research shows however that they haven’t been used effectively and rather than ensuring people get proper advice and information on work and training opportunities, sanctions have increased stress and poverty. DWP research found that whilst the lone parents interviewed appeared to understand that in theory their benefits would be cut if they don’t attend interviews, they also found that many who had been sanctioned weren’t aware of it and others who had missed interviews weren’t sanctioned2.
In helping one lone parent sort out her finances, a CAB adviser found that she had been living on reduced income support for three years. Jobcentre Plus advised that she had been sanctioned in June 2004, but they couldn’t give an explanation as their ‘notepad’ only went back 14 months. They added that her failure to attend a WFI in April 2007 had meant that the sanction remained in place. The client said she’d always attended her interviews and was able to provide names of the personal advisers she had seen. What followed would be enough to make anyone sceptical about Jobcentre Plus’ desire to act in the interests of lone parents: the benefit delivery centre in Belfast told her to discuss her WFI history with her local Jobcentre Plus office and ask them to forward the details to Belfast. However, her local office told her that she first needed to phone Belfast to arrange an appointment as no-one is seen without one! Having spent £7 on phone calls she was told that calling Belfast should not have been necessary as her local office could also make appointments. The bureau commented that for this woman the regime of WFIs and sanctions had simply meant living on a reduced income for almost four years. Low income and debt had caused her stress and anxiety and affected her ability to provide for her son, yet Jobcentre Plus had made no attempt to either provide her with a reason or to help her with her finances.
A lone parent of a 13 year old was being helped with her finances by a Hertfordshire CAB. She was only receiving £35.49 apparently as a result of failing to attend a work focussed interview – though she advised that she had attended one recently. On phoning the benefit delivery centre to find out the impact of her recent WFI on her benefits, they found that they had no record of her attendance. The CAB got through to the personal adviser at the local Jobcentre Plus who apologised for not sending through the paperwork and promised to send it through that day.
A lone parent in full time education sought help when she received a letter to say her benefits had been reduced. When she phoned to find out why, she was told that she had been sent two letters inviting her to work focussed interviews but had failed to attend. She found out that the letters had been sent to an address she had left over a year before. She did not get an apology and was simply told that her sanction could not be lifted until she attended a WFI. She was so worried about her finances that she told the adviser she was considering giving up her course even though she only had a few months left. She couldn’t understand how Jobcentre Plus could send a letter advising of a cut to her benefits to the right address but send the WFI invitations to a different one. A CAB in Wales
It is clear that significant improvement in operation of sanctions is necessary if they are to serve any valid purpose and not just cause hardship.
In our view better marketing and promotion of training and skills and outreach sessions in informal settings such as Children’s Centres would be more effective than a strict sanctions regime at getting lone parents closer to the labour market.
JSA regime and flexibilities
We welcome the introduction of additional flexibilities within the JSA regime for all parents. We believe that these additional flexibilities are vitally important in ensuring that parents are not penalised for leaving work, or for not taking work that is wholly inappropriate because of their caring responsibilities.
Any special circumstances in relation to childcare are to be recorded in the Jobseeker’s Agreement. The memorandum states that the initial interview will ‘wherever possible’ be conducted by an adviser with an expertise both in the needs of parents and of local childcare provision. As the Jobseeker’s Agreement is key, it seems that the provision of an expert at this stage is vital. We recommend that Jobcentre Plus monitor the frequency with which they are able to provide a specially trained personal adviser. (paragraph 4.13)
Paragraph 4.14. We welcome the proposed amendment to the regulations to allow parents to restrict their working hours to fit with their caring responsibilities, even if there are no jobs within the area that would fit these requirements.
We welcome proposals to amend regulations to provide more flexibility around availability for attending job interviews and starting work (para 4.16), and to extend the concessionary period following a death or domestic emergency etc.
Jobcentre Plus must use specially trained advisers, be they Lone Parent Advisers or Disability Employment Advisers (DEA) to ensure that compliance with the Jobseeker’s Agreement is managed appropriately, as illustrated by the following case.
A JSA claimant with mental health problems had been allocated a DEA but s/he often wasn’t available when the client had to sign on. The lack of understanding of her problems by non-specialist advisers meant that they would try to persuade her to take inappropriate jobs. As a result she was so stressed about going to the Jobcentre that she took too much medication to be able to drive. Her mother regularly took the day off work to drive her to her fortnightly review. If she could have relied on her DEA this situation would be avoided.
Paragraph 4.24 highlights how help with travel expenses to attend NDLP interviews will be made available even when attendance is on a normal signing-on day. This appears to serve as an incentive to participate and we endorse this approach.
Proposals for pre-sanction contact and extending access to hardship payments
Paragraphs 4.28- 4.35 highlight the commitment that Jobcentre Plus to try and contact the lone parent before a sanction is applied. Paragraph 4.30 suggests that they will attempt to make at least one contact by telephone and send a letter following a failure to attend (FTA). Paragraph 4.33 suggests that they will attempt to make at least two contacts with a parent who has deemed to have failed to comply with their Jobseeker’s Agreement. CAB evidence suggests that many sanctions fail to serve their stated purpose as they are applied without the claimant understanding why. Instead of encouraging compliance they therefore only serve to cause hardship. DWP research on sanctions found that the financial pressures caused by sanctions increased stress levels on some lone parents and compounded pre-existing health conditions such as stress, panic attacks or depression. Sanctions also led to increased borrowing3. This can be counterproductive, as debt itself can be a barrier to moving into work.
A CAB mental health outreach helped a client suffering from depression, severe back pain and arthritis. His JSA was stopped without warning, after which he was told that they did not consider him to be fulfilling his Jobseeker’s Agreement. He was not given any explanation, nor told how long the sanction would last, nor told that he had any right to appeal or offered the opportunity to speak to an adviser. Jobcentre Plus explained the situation to the CAB, advising that he had failed to apply for jobs suggested to him, but did acknowledge that they hadn’t written to him about it until two weeks after the sanction had been imposed. Given the opportunity to talk through his concerns, the client showed the CAB adviser what jobs he had applied for and why he felt unable to apply for the others because of his disabilities. His lack of money and inability to meet his debt repayments put extra pressure on him and he felt frustrated that if he had been given the chance to show his efforts to find work, the sanction could have been avoided.
We agree therefore that contact in advance of sanction is essential. We would suggest that the requirement of Jobcentre Plus to attempt to make contact with the claimant should be covered by regulations. If Jobcentre Plus fails to make the necessary attempts to contact the claimant, then the application of the sanction can be appealed.
In addition we would welcome a review of Jobcentre Plus’ use of the disadvantage marker system. This system is designed to encourage advisers to offer appropriate provision to disadvantaged customers, but recent research has found that not all vulnerable people are identified. As a result the system is not as effective as it is could be4.
We welcome the extension of eligibility for hardship payments to lone parents. Jobcentre Plus must ensure however that claimants are aware of them. Jobcentre Plus figures currently show that only 25 per cent of those sanctioned apply for a hardship payment and of those that do 92 per cent are successful (paragraph 43)
Just cause and good cause
We welcome the proposed amendments to the regulations relating to childcare - i.e. that the decision maker must specifically consider the availability and suitability of childcare, as well as the reasonableness of childcare expenses in relation to the rest of a parent’s income. The following case demonstrates the importance of making this amendment:
A lone parent with a five year old child had been threatened with repossession for rent arrears on her housing association home. She was struggling financially having had to give up work because of difficulties with childcare. She is now looking for a job with hours better suited to caring for her child. A North of Scotland CAB
Without the proposed amendment this client’s situation could have been made even worse by the imposition of a benefit sanctions.
Lone parents in receipt of income support with the disability premium (paras 6.13-6.17)
There are 25,000 lone parents who, as a result of these changes, will lose their entitlement to income support, but who are unable to work on disability grounds. It is very important that the ESA regulations are amended to enable these parents to bypass the 13 week assessment phase of ESA. They are in receipt of the disability premium through receipt of DLA and have not claimed income support on the grounds of incapacity. If they cannot bypass the assessment phase, these lone parents would face a £25 drop in their income without their circumstances having changed. However, as there is no disability premium in ESA, they will still face an income drop of £1.85. Of greater importance therefore, is the commitment that Jobcentre Plus have made to contact these lone parents in advance and to help them claim income support on the grounds of incapacity. Whilst this is very welcome, we believe that it involves conveying a complicated message. As changing the grounds of their claim would be in the interests of all lone parents who continue to have a disability, successful communication would lead to most of the 25,000 making a claim on the grounds of disability. We would like to see Jobcentre Plus setting a high target for changed claims and ensuring that their letters will be simple, clear, and backed up by a telephone call.
Better off in work? Support getting into work
It is vital for lone parents to know that they will earn enough in work to manage the extra associated costs and therefore will not be worse off than on benefits. The recent proposal to disregard child benefit in housing and council tax benefit calculations will be a real help in ensuring that families (at least those in rented accommodation) will be better off in work. However, the transition to work from benefits can put families into debt because benefits stop, but extra work related expenses (such as travel, childcare and school meals) start immediately, and wages are usually paid in arrears. Short term temporary credits also come to an end and tax credits reduce in the second year of returning to work. Lone parents must therefore receive good quality advice and information about the changes in their finances, both immediately on going into work and for the future.
More must be done to ensure that working families claim housing benefit. Currently only half of all eligible households in work claim housing benefit, and boosting take-up would improve work incentives.
The extra costs associated with going back to work can often mean that a lone parent on minimum wage is very little better off. It doesn’t take much to go wrong with benefits before they can get behind with bills, get into debt and rent arrears, risking the security of the home.
The case of a CAB client in Hertfordshire demonstrates this well. A single parent with two teenage children, she got into difficulty with her HB when her work hours changed from around 31 to 16 hours a week. Her 19 year old son also got a job for a couple weeks. She informed the local authority of both changes but it took several months to reassess her benefit. Things were further complicated by the fact that she had to continually report changes in her wages as she was trying to do overtime when it was available. She was careful always to report the changes but processing delays resulted in constant over and underpayments which caused her budgeting problems and led to rent and council tax arrears. She was now being threatened with possession action, was very concerned that she might lose her home and was seeking help from her doctor for stress.
DWP research 5 shows that one adult in part time work is not enough to protect a family from persistent poverty. Policy options must recognise that low paid work is not always the best option if there are no prospects of moving to better paid work. Research shows that unstable work can in fact have a negative impact on the children It’s a family affair6.
In work support
The introduction of the in work emergency fund; in work adviser support have shown recognition of the need to continue to support parents when in work. Lone parents with debts for example, require support through the transition from benefits to work, and into the long term. Repayment arrangements will need changing and a lone parent may need help accessing affordable credit, as moving into work will remove access to help from social fund budgeting loans. The story of one Horizons client highlights the financial risks of going into work and the need for support for financial management during the change.
“She has faced two financial mini-crises since coming off income support. First, since her council tax arrears were no longer being paid through deductions from benefit, she faced bailiffs’ action for the amount owing. As an alternative, the adviser helped her to arrange with the council to make deductions from her wages. Though not ideal, this was preferable to incurring bailiffs’ charges. Secondly, her fridge broke down irreparably just before Christmas. Not being on Income support, she had no recourse to a social fund budgeting loan, but was fearful of going into further debt via a catalogue or store purchase. Fortunately, we were able to secure her a re-conditioned fridge from Create, a recycling charity.”
The introduction of the support from personal advisers when in work must be flexible and properly resourced. The evaluation of the Employment Retention and Advancement programme found that job retention by lone parents was difficult to achieve. Quality and proactive support by personal advisers was valued. The report emphasised the importance of specialist training and management support for these staff7.
Implementation
In our experience, implementation is key to the success of any policy. The introduction of work focussed interviews led to clients coming into CAB scared by the letters they had received, which they found threatening. Publicity material had promoted WFIs as being valuable opportunities to share with claimants, information about training courses, job opportunities, and to chat to someone about any concerns. The overriding message of the letters, on the other hand, had been that benefits would be cut for non-attendance. The letters were not even tailored to recognise the different ages of children.
The Memorandum outlines DWP’s plans for communicating the changes with lone parents. The plan looks fairly holistic, recognises the need for lone parents to be supported through the changes and includes the need for training for Jobcentre Plus staff. We would urge that Jobcentre Plus make every effort to tailor the information letter as closely as possible to the individual, and think very carefully about how it conveys the messages. Some parents will be very nervous about the prospect of having to look for work, and a heavy handed approach will only serve to reinforce this fear. Citizens Advice has already had feedback from a CAB whose client had come in having been to an Options and Choices event scared by what they have been told. Whatever supportive messages Jobcentre Plus had intended to convey, the client had come away in panic and fear. We hope that this experience is not typical. We recognise that Jobcentre Plus must be honest with claimants about their income support entitlement coming to an end, but we hope that they will not feel the need to portray tough messages which risk being counterproductive.
Evaluation
We welcome the commitment to fully evaluate the implementation of these changes. It is important that lessons learnt from the first year will ensure that improvements can be made when the changes are rolled out to parents of younger children who will, by nature of their caring responsibilities, face more circumstantial barriers in returning to work.
Social Policy contact: Katie Lane Katie Lane
1. Joyce, L and Whiting K, DWP Working paper no.27 2006, Sanctions: Qualitative summary report on lone parent customers
2. Sanctions: Qualitative summary report on lone parent customers, Joyce, L, Whiting, K, DWP Working Paper 27, 2006
3. ibid
4. Disadvantage Marker Study, Helen Marshall and Lucy Joyce, DWP 2007
5. The circumstances of persistently poor families with children: Evidence from the Families and Children Study (FACS), Matt Barnes, Anne Conolly and Wojtek Tomaszewski, 2008
6. Low income children’s perspective on maternal work, Tess Ridge in Jnl Soc. Pol, 36, 2007.
7. Implementation and second-year impacts for lone parents in the UK Employment Retention and Advancement demonstration, DWP research report 489, 2008
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