HC Deb 14 February 1978 vol 944 cc395-408

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Snape.]

11.2 p.m.

Mr. Neil Carmichael (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)

The object of this Adjournment debate is to call attention to the situation at the Minerva Street, Glasgow, office of the Department of Health and Social Security, which is within my constituency. It is an office which pays on a daily basis all the recipients of supplementary benefit in the Glasgow area who are deemed by the Department to have no fixed abode. I hope to say something later about the definition of "no fixed abode", but at the moment I am particularly concerned with a small number of these claimants who cause a great deal of nuisance to my constituents in Minerva Street, St. Vincent Crescent and part of Argyll Street.

The houses there form a fine collection of good Victorian architecture of which Glasgow has probably the best examples in the United Kingdom. Until about 10 years ago there was deterioration and neglect in the area. There was some extensive change of use allowed by the planning people, and some of the good old flats were made over to offices, while some of the larger flats were in multiple occupancy. In the last decade there has been an attempt by the local residents to reinstate these buildings. New families have moved in, the back courts have been cleaned up and made most attractive, and many of the flats have been very extensively refurbished.

Into this area, which the local people are trying so hard to improve, with the very welcome help of Government grants, the Department decided to register for payment all the most difficult cases in the entire city. As far as I have been able to check no local organisations or people were consulted, yet the Department must have been aware that it was creating a potential problem. I am aware that London has two such specialist offices but I am not sure whether they predated the Minerva Street office or whether they all started at the same time. If the former, there is even less excuse for not making very sure of local conditions before embarking on closing the office. Perhaps my hon. Friend will clear this up now or write to me about it.

The big problem is caused by alcohol. The practice seems to be for those in the particular troublesome group who are paid first to go to the local post office, where incidentally they frequently make a nuisance of themselves, get their money, and go to the off-licence to buy cheap wine, or to wherever a particular brand of hair lacquer can be bought. They then return to the supplementary health office to meet their friends who are paid out later in the morning. The bottles are then passed around from hand to hand, quite openly—I have seen it done myself—in front of children or anyone else who may be about. Of course these people are ill and in need of special help and attention. What I find most worrying is that until someone, somewhere, some time, can work out a way of handling this distressing social condition, my constituents must apparently bear the whole of the problem for the entire Glasgow area.

But the open drinking is only the start. The general behaviour of these claimants is deplorable. When fully intoxicated they sometimes become abusive and lie in the "closes" across doorways in drunken sleep making it most unpleasant for the residents to go in and out of their homes. Worst and most unpleasant of all is the fact that whether from incontinence or whatever other reason they frequently urinate where they are, often right against the very doors of my constituents' flats. Washing out these "closes" or the doorways is the disagreeable task which falls to some of my unfortunate electors. Of course, these incidents are seldom registered by the police, because by their very nature it is not easy actually to catch someeone when he or she is committing the offence.

I think that I should say something on behalf of my constituents, who have borne so much for so long. I have met them singly and in groups many times, the most recent being only about three weeks ago when about 30 gathered in a house to discuss the problem with me yet again. During all my correspondence with the Secretary of State, and the chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, they have been incredibly patient, but more important they have been incredibly understanding about these people who have caused them such trouble and unpleasantness over the last few years. Many of them have even told me they sometimes felt a little ashamed of themselves for perhaps being lacking in charity, particularly in cold or wet weather. At the same time they feel that it is asking a lot of them to be expected to take the whole of the burden.

That is why I suggested in an early letter to the chairman of the Commission that this type of payment should be moved to the Pitt Street office of the Department, where there is little residential property and which is directly opposite the Strathclyde Police Headquarters. I am sad to say that the letter I got in reply from the chairman is one that I hope he wished he had never signed. I assume that he did not actually write it himself. I know the pressures on people in his position. It is physically not possible even to read all the letters one must sign. There was first a suggestion in this letter that the situation was not really as bad as I painted it and then the inconsistent and insulting suggestion that even these mild goings on would be offensive at Pitt Street.

The insult to my constituents was contained in the phrase there are good class hotels and businesses nearby to that office and we would only be shifting the problem not easing it". So we have an underplaying of the problem when it affects ordinary people but an overstatement, or perhaps no more than the truth, when it affects the clientele of good class hotels and businesses". The people in Minerva Street have a much more responsible attitude. They do not want what is a real social problem ignored. I am sorry to tell my hon. Friend, who is replying tonight, that their assessment of official policy now is, sadly, that no one is really concerned about the consequences of this unilateral decision if it can be nicely swept under the carpet or in this case literally right up to their very doorsteps.

I have already expressed my objection to this attitude to the Secretary of State, but I must get it on the record in the strongest possible terms. I get a bit tired of professional people suggesting developments in, for instance, an area such as Bermondsey or Kilburn which it would not even cross their minds to propose for Hampstead or Blackheath. That type of thinking results in the situation that I complain about this evening.

However, with specific reference to the problem to hand I should like to put a few points to the Minister which I appreciate he may not be able to answer tonight but which I hope his Department will take heed of in any future planning of its offices.

First, why was this office chosen? According to the people in Glasgow who are in daily and nightly contact with those who have no-fixed-abode problems, this office is wrongly sighted geographically. The bulk of the no-fixed-abode people tend to be in the centre-to-eastern area of the City. They have a very long walk, or an expensive bus ride, to reach Minerva Street.

Secondly, what is the Department's definition of "no fixed abode"? I have been told of men who have lived in the same hostel for 20, 30 or even 40 years with impeccable backgrounds, records and habits, but they are no-fixed-abode cases. It seems to me that an administrative convenience has been abused to the extent of causing great inconvenience to perfectly reasonable, stable people who either choose or need to live in hostel accommodation. I am sure that my hon. Friend and his rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State do not see the Department as just a machine to pay out the money set aside by this House for this specific purpose but carrying no wider social responsibilities for the recipients.

That brings me to my third point. If the Minerva Street office is so special, what special training have the staff received? I am aware that a lot of money has been spent on the physical layout of the office, but I am concerned with the much more important software of the system, which is the staff who operate it. If Glasgow and London alone have problems of a different magnitude from Manchester, Birmingham or Newcastle, were the prospective staffs all sent on special and specific training courses related to the work they would be doing in Minerva Street?

The last point that I shall have time to raise with my hon. Friend is the more general one of treatment for the alcoholics who are the cause of most of the problems I am concerned about tonight. I was pleased to be told by the Secretary of State that more beds were being provided at the Bishopbriggs reception centre and that links between this centre and Minerva Street were to be strengthened. Are the physical links also to be improved? I understand that men sent to Bishopbriggs have to find their own way there. Of those who are sent I wonder how many actually arrive. Could the Department not co-operate with the regional social work department and go back to the system that was used in the '30s, when there were many more people sleeping rough, of sending a bus round at about 10 o'clock at night to collect these unfortunate cases and take them somewhere indoors, however rough and ready? Finally, could my hon. Friend use the good offices of his Department, and a little of its money, to help the regional health or social work authorities to set up a badly needed detoxification unit in the Glasgow area?

I have tried to end my remarks on a constructive and helpful note for my hon. Friend's Department. I hope that he will respond with proposals which will be helpful to my constituents.

11.13 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvin-grove (Mr. Carmichael) for giving me the opportunity to explain the Department's position in this matter.

The Department's policy, where numbers justify it, is to deal with single, unemployed claimants living in hostels and lodging houses at separate, specialist offices. There are at present three such offices. One of these is the office at 67 Minerva Street, Glasgow, known within the Department as Cranstonhill Area Office, and the other two are in London. Cranstonhill office was first set up in 1959, and it moved to its present location in April 1972. All of these offices deal with lodging houses irrespective of their location in the territory of another office. Claimants in Glasgow without addresses have also been handled at Cranstonhill office since March 1976. It has been common for such claimants to call at these offices, no doubt because they are used to them from their spells in hostels, and the position was formalised in Glasgow where the problem of single homelessness was much more concentrated than it was in London.

I should like to make it plain at the outset that I have considerable sympathy for the views expressed, and I can fully understand the feelings of those residents who live near to my Department's local office at 67 Minerva Street, Glasgow, particularly when they complain about the behaviour of some of the claimants who call there. I know that my hon. Friend has raised this matter earlier in meetings with my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Social Security, when he fully and clearly explained the difficulties that arise. I have read the letter that my right hon. Friend sent following their meeting on 14th December last year, and I know that he also is sympathetic and wants to take whatever steps are possible to effect improvements.

I intend now, therefore, to explain our general policy and to report on the measures that have been taken in Glasgow, largely as a result of the examination of our operational arrangements for which my right hon. Friend asked as a result of the meetings.

There were originally two main reasons for the creation of these specialist offices, the first being that the frequent movements of claimants from one lodging house to another strained the system by which their papers were transferred between offices as they moved across boundaries. The result was that in many cases the time-lag involved and the general unreliability of statements about the date and place of last applications led to overlapping payments and sometimes fraud.

The second reason was that large numbers of these claimants were dirty in their personal habits and appearance, and many more alcoholics or meths drinkers. They could be drunk, abusive, unkempt and smelly, and not particular where they relieved themselves. Besides being objectionable to local residents, they were liable to distress other claimants, particularly women and children. The effect of their being dealt with by a number of offices spread these problems over a wide area and it was thought more reasonable to concentrate them in one spot where the nuisance could be contained or thereby more easily remedied and the abuses could be better controlled.

These considerations are important, but there are others to which we are very much alive, some of which have become evident as a result of experience in such offices. These fall into three main categories—the prevention of abuse, the containment and reduction of nuisance, and the furthering of the welfare of the claimants themselves—and these sometimes overlap. I have already referred to the difficulties of keeping track of those claimants who move frequently and how hard it is to obtain accurate statements of events—sometimes because the claimants are trying to pull the wool over our eyes; but often because they have difficulty themselves in remembering what has happened.

The concentration of such cases has meant that the offices dealing with them have gained from them specialist experience so that interviewing and verification standards have improved. The point about nuisance is more concerned with other claimants, who are no longer distressed or even put off altogether by the presence of some of these more unfortunate people in what I might call our ordinary offices. And we find that the claimants themselves generally prefer these arrangements because they are more at ease where they do not have to mix with others, who so obviously resent their presence, and where they do not have to go to lengths to justify themselves.

The officers working in these offices are able to establish effective links with statutory and voluntary bodies in the welfare field and can concentrate on the resettlement of this special group of claimants and helping them into employment.

In general, staff in these offices have no specialist training, but a member of the staff at Cranstonhill went on a reception centre course last December. It is hoped that specialist training can be extended by means of such courses.

Those who oppose the concept of specialist offices fall generally into two groups. The first think that the claimants get a raw deal, and the others are concerned with the environmental problems. The main arguments of the first group are that specialist offices stigmatise their claimants by segregated treatment and compound their image of themselves as social failures so that the possibility of rehabilitation within the community is thereby reduced, and that claimants are involved in additional and unnecessary travelling through having to go to the specialist offices. The second group are concerned more about the concentration of vagrants, many of whom are drifters and/or drunkards, with consequential environmental pollution, and particularly the nusiance created for residents in the area of the office.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove has on a number of occasions raised the question of the problems for residents living in the vicinity of the Cranstonhill office. It is, of course, understandable that people living near these specialist offices should take exception to the nusiances sometimes committed by some of those attending there and may be worried sometimes about their own safety and that of their children. I shall return to this point later.

The question whether such offices should exist and, if so, where they should be situated, is for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but the Supplementary Benefits Commission has a proper interest and a role to play. It recently considered the subject, when it had the benefit not only of views expressed by regional controllers but also of a review that had been undertaken by the Controller of the Scottish Region of the Cranstonhill Office and its operations. It concluded that the policy of having these special offices for claimants leading unsettled lives was the right one to follow and it supported the view that the three specialist offices now operating provide a better service for the people concerned than they would otherwise receive.

At the same time it had some relevant remarks to make about the need for special training for staff in the offices, the risk of temporarily homeless persons being pushed into the comunity of "dossers", so that clear guidance for staff is necessary to show who should be dealt with elsewhere and about the location of the offices. The Commission appreciated the difficulties that could arise in the neighbourhood of the offices and were concerned to have them situated close to these necessary facilities but as far as possible from residential areas. This factor is, of course, particularly relevant at Cranstonhill. I find myself in full agreement with the Commission.

Once the policy has been confirmed, the question of whether the offices are in the right place arises. It is not practicable, I am afraid, to obtain alternative accommodation in the foreseeable future for the special Glasgow office. A move from the present site to an office which could carry out the same functions at another site is impossible at present because of the constraints under which the Property Services Agency is now working and expects to work during the next few years. As I have said, we have concluded that the policy of having specialist offices is right, but even if we had decided that the appropriate measure was to disperse the work to other offices, this would have meant that extensions or alterations to accommodate extra staff and callers would have been necessary. The cost of such alterations would have competed with demands from my Department and others on the restricted budgets of the Property Services Agency, and again it is unlikely that any such work could have been undertaken within the foreseeable future. However, I am glad to say that it is proving possible to do quite a lot to reduce the problems that have arisen at the present office.

As I said earlier, Cranstonhill was created in October 1959 to deal with all lodging house cases in Glasgow. Over the years there has been a decrease in the number of lodging houses. Some have closed because of economic factors, others for a variety of reasons, including slum clearance. There is, as a result, a shortage of accommodation for the single homeless—not, of course, a problem unique to Glasgow.

The office deals with 10 local authority hostels, including one for women, which have a bed space capacity of 1,703—60 for women—one privately owned lodging house for men with a bed capacity of 451, and one hostel for women, run by the Salvation Army, with a bed capacity of 146. In addition, there are three night shelters with an approximate capacity of 214. The office now has a load of about 1,700 persons who are regularly in receipt of supplementary benefit. The make-up of the load constantly changes as the claimants change address or go in and out of work. The figure of 1,700 was broken down into approximately 800 cases registered at the unemployment benefit office for work, 450 other persons in receipt of supplementary allowance—many of whom would have been temporarily incapacitated because of sickness—and 450 supplementary pension cases. In addition, approximately 280 people with no settled address would be paid.

As one might expect with such an office, it attracts large numbers of callers—proportionately many more than would an ordinary office of comparable size—and this is of course one of the main points that concerns my hon. Friend and his constituents.

As I said earlier, my hon. Friend has raised the question of the concern of the local residents on a number of occasions. I understand the subject has been put to my hon. Friend through the St. Vincent Crescent Community Association, representing residents of the nearby St. Vincents Crescent, who are concerned about the anti-social behaviour of some of the persons attending the office. The main reasons for complaint have been detailed by my hon. Friend—namely, that some of the claimants urinated in public and that they tend to gather in groups to consume drink. One of the factors in the problem was that the persons concerned were not always attending the office themselves but were merely accompanying claimants—perhaps in the hope of enjoying some of the benefits of any ensuing payments. Such groups would hang around the vicinity of the office, often drinking in the meantime.

The Controller of the Scottish Region therefore reviewed operations at Cranstonhill and as a result efforts have been concentrated on measures which would reduce and control the caller traffic, and authority. As a first step, the Glasgow on liaison with the police and local Parks Department agreed to fence round a small landscaped area opposite the office where itinerants were gathering, and improved toilet facilities for men and women have now been provided. These measures reduce the nuisance to local residents.

To minimise numbers of claimants congregating at an early hour, the opening hours have been brought forward from the usual 9.30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and to mitigate any possible nuisance of queueing even with early opening, metal gates giving access to an enclosed yard beside the office have been opened at 8.30 a.m. to take claimants off the street. I understand that these two measures have much eased the situation at that time of day. Finally, in this context the police were approached with a request to patrol the general locality to discourage objectionable conduct, and some increased activity has resulted.

In the past, claimants without addresses, including those in night shelters, were required to call daily or weekly at the local office. The possibility of reducing callers by issuing authorisations for the unemployment benefit offices to make continuing payments in such cases has been examined. There are limits to how far we can go along this road, because of the dangers of fraud, but it has been proved possible to select a number of regular night-shelter users for payments by this procedure and thus reduce the number of callers. It has also been possible to effect a further reduction in callers by undertaking some reviews of cases which were undertaken in the offices by visits to lodging houses, some of which now have more suitable facilities.

An extensive analysis and review of organisation and staffing of the caller section of the office has been completed and measures to reduce the length of time that claimants are in the office have been introduced. There are early indications of a marked improvement in average waiting times and this obviously has a bearing where non-claimants are waiting outside the office.

Currently, the Giro cheques issued to claimants at this office are normally encashable only at Sandyford post office, which is the nearest one to the office. Special arrangements about identification are operative here as a means of curtailing abuse. Discussions have been taking place with the Post Office so that these special procedures can be extended to a limited number of other offices. The hope is that, while causing no inconvenience to the claimants, this could have the effect of dispersing most of them from the Vincent Crescent district once payment had been issued. I am glad to say that, after considerable discussions, the Post Office at a meeting only last Friday agreed that a further four post offices situated in the city centre would be brought into the scheme. This should reduce considerably the numbers of claimants calling at Sandyford, and thus staying in the vicinity.

Another possibility being considered is the issue of vouchers to cover the provision of meals at local authority hostels for callers without an address. The availability of money to spend on alcohol rather than food is a major cause of the problem, and if we can achieve anything in this line it will bring benefit for the individual's health as well as minimising abuse. Discussions are taking place with Glasgow District Council and experiment arrangements are being considered. However, we have some way to go before this idea can reach fruition.

The resources devoted to interviewing with a view to resettlement of these claimants have been increased, with encouraging results so far. The intention is to create closer links with the Bishoprigg reception centre, and more beds have been made available there. It has been found that many of the men referred to the centre are severely undernourished and unfit in some way for normal work. The work programmes have therefore had to be modified for them. The officers who have been involved in this exercise have acquired a case load of 82 men who are or have been living in night shelters, and they have succeeded in persuading 44 of them to enter the centre.

The average length of stay there has been 29 days, and during this period the improvement in the physical condition of the men has been marked. A follow-up check has shown that, of the 25 who had by then been discharged, 14 had not reapplied for benefit, four had been resettled in local authority hostels, one had returned to his family home, while another had been placed in work with accommodation provided. I find this most encouraging, though obviously more work will be needed at a later date before we can evaluate what has been achieved.

I hope I have shown, first, why we have decided that this kind of specialist office should be retained, and secondly, that we are very concerned to minimise any misuse that may result, particularly any inconvenience to my hon. Friend's constituents. I am sorry that we cannot hold out hopes of relocating Granstonhill office in the near future, but we are doing everything in our power to improve the situation there.

Some improvement has been achieved and we intend to do more. Any helpful suggestion that my hon. Friend or anyone else can make will be welcomed. I have taken careful note of my hon. Friend's suggestions tonight and I shall write to him about them. On the question of a detoxification unit, a reply may take a little longer because it raises wider issues of policy regarding alcoholism. There are a number of experimental units in various parts of the country. I shall discuss the matter with the appropriate officials and write to my hon. Friend on this point which is at the root of the problem of the type of people who are annoying his constituents.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Eleven o'clock.