HC Deb 29 July 1982 vol 28 cc1387-93

4.1 am

Mr. John Tilley (Lambeth, Central)

I wish, even at this late hour, to speak about the increasing delays suffered by my constituents who claim social security. The delays are becoming worse and are causing confusion, distress and misery to my constituents and, I suspect, to those of many other hon. Members.

Let me make it clear from the beginning that I am not criticising or attacking the staff at social security offices. On the contrary, with the Government's cuts, the staff are as much the victims as are the claimants. I have always had courteous and efficient service from local managers, and I am aware that counter and clerical staff struggle conscientiously to provide a decent service. The blame for the present crisis lies squarely with the Government, who refuse to provide the staff needed to deal with the rising tide of poverty that they have created.

That charge is borne out by the figures that I received recently in answer to Parliamentary Questions. I have been told that in Kennington, from March 1979 until March 1982, the number of supplementary benefit cases—apart from pensioners—increased from 3,702 to 6,232, whereas the staff increased only from 61 to 82. At the Brixton office, there was an even larger increase from 2,780 to 6,562, while the staff was increased only from 131 to 160. There was a doubling of those forced to claim supplementary benefit while the staff to cope with that increase has risen by only one-quarter. During the same period, contributory benefit claims fell, largely because, when there are fewer people in work, fewer are sick and claim contributory benefit. Supplementary benefit claims involve much more work than contributory benefit claims. It is different work. There is no doubt that there has been a massive cut in staff resources in relation to need.

I wish to give some examples of how the staff cuts affect ordinary people in London.

I can give some examples from my surgery. A man of 87 was ill, and because of his condition needed new sheets and underwear often. In April 1981 he applied for a grant to buy these things. He heard nothing further, and because of his age and condition he found it difficult to chase the matter up. A local councillor tried to help but was not able to achieve any result until, in March of this year, the social security office discovered what had gone wrong and gave a grant of £108. By that time, a year after the original request, the man had got into rent arrears because he had had to buy these items out of his living allowance. He died last month, so the last months of his life were overshadowed by this long delay.

There is another example, about which the Minister may be aware because I have written to him about it, but it is an important one. A man who is a part-time music teacher, and as such obliged to claim supplementary benefit during school holidays, found that, because of excessive delays by the office in dealing with his claims for the Easter and summer holiday period, he got into arrears.

The man's landlords took him to court to evict him. Eventually the payment for the rent came through, but in the meantime he had been taken to court and had had to pay £51 court costs. I intervened with the local manager at the regional level to try to get the costs paid, but it was only when I wrote to the Minister that it was agreed that an ex gratia payment should be made to him.

On 11 June I received a letter from the Minister, but the man has not yet been reimbursed for the court costs and at the end of July he is still awaiting payment for his claim for the Easter holiday period. That delay continues even though there has been ministerial intervention. It makes one wonder just how many other cases there are.

There have always been cases of delay and there always will be, even in the best regulated and staffed institutions. The point that I am trying to put across is that there is a consistent pattern of a growing backlog of all claimants, and that a situation that was not particularly good three years ago is now getting very much worse.

Another case in an office in my constituency is that the rent increases of April of this year have still not been processed for the local authority tenants who are also on supplementary benefit. The specific case that I am thinking of resulted in a pensioner getting back pay of £3.18 a week for the time since 5 April. Clearly, that represents a considerable amount in the budget of a pensioner who has no other resources.

The local citizens advice bureaux report the same pattern. I quote the views of the Streatham advice bureau, which deals with part of my constituency.

Over the past year or so there has been a substantial increase in the number of queries dealt with by the Bureau in connection with … benefit … claims. This has coincided with a marked deterioration in the time taken by the DHSS to process claims and queries, making it increasingly more difficult and time-consuming for advice workers to resolve claimants' problems. This situation is exacerbated by the increasing general inaccessibility of the DHSS. All too often, a local officer cannot be contacted at all by telephone by us or by the claimant because the lines are permanently engaged … letters can remain unanswered for months. Sometimes, where benefit has not arrived when due, the claimant is told by the DHSS that the quickest way of obtaining information regarding benefit is to call in person at the local office. This usually entails waiting 2–3 hours in a packed waiting room". The Clapham CAB, which is in my constituency and serves a large part of it, reports 28 cases that just one of the workers has of problems awaiting action by the DHSS.

Let me give the bare details of a few cases. A Giro went astray in January 1982. The client tried repeatedly to get recovery up to July 1982, and then came to the CAB for help. Another involved a single payment claimed in April 1981. It was still outstanding in February 1982. In a third case, a claim was lodged in February 1982, and benefit was stopped in March 1982 because of a query about resources. The claimant wrote six letters, one of which was sent by recorded delivery, but no money was paid between March and June. No replies were received to the letters.

So there is a consistent pattern. The Government are deluding themselves if they think that they are saving money by this strategem of understaffing the offices. Inefficiency and waste of resources are the result of the delays, and other agencies have to step in and make payments from public funds. The welfare rights officer of the local social services department tells me that the introduction of a new legal framework to the Supplementary Benefit scheme in November 1980 was supposed to simplify the scheme, and … alleviate some of the previous problems". Since then, she says, the standard of service from DHSS officers has been uneven—with different … officers appearing to be near breaking point at different times. However, the same problems persist: on a day to day basis, the problems are long delays in getting through on the telephone, delays in appointments, delays to letters, delays in payments. In Social Services, we experience this in a direct way in terms of clients coming to us and needing help to sort out a delay, or indeed, with vulnerable families coming to us who have no money left to buy even food for their children. This is reflected in the payments we make under the Child Care Act 1980 (Section One). I have looked at some recent Section One statistics to discern the recent trends". She then gives a sample of what she found. In May/June 1982, … 106 payments recorded to date, of which 46 had been made because of a delay in payment to a family on Supplementary Benefit. Six (6) of these involved a Child Benefit delay;"— which, of course, is not the local office, but forty (40) were Supplementary Benefit delays". So there is a serious and a growing problem.

We spend much time in the House discussing whether the social security regulations are too complicated. I see from Monday's debate that it took the Minister over an hour to explain the new housing benefits. We also discuss whether the benefits are adequate. We are in danger of assuming that people who have entitlement get those entitlements promptly—or even at all. Increasingly, that is not happening. Even if people manage to work out their rights, and even if they qualify for a benefit which we on these Benches believe is now a matter of bare subsidence levels, they still have to wait for many poverty-stricken weeks, or possibly months, for those small benefits. Pensioners and families who are already struggling with the problems of unemployment, soaring fuel costs and housing shortage, have to cope with this delay as well.

The Government, by refusing to provide sufficient staff, are penalising and pauperising those who, by every definition, are already the weakest members of our society. The supplementary benefits system is intended to be a safety net to catch those who need help, but one that is so slow to operate that it might as well be lying on the ground will not break anyone's fall.

The sad irony is that this administrative poverty trap is catching people in an area which is supposed to receive the full benefit of the Government's inner city programme. I am not saying for a moment that the problems of Brixton will be solved simply by sending out giros on time, but it would help. It would not only ensure that people could eat regularly and clothe their children, but it might also help to reduce the resentment of public officials that has so often been noticed in such areas.

There is a Minister from the Department of Health and Social Services on the Lambeth Partnership Committee, although not the Minister who is with us tonight. That committee is supposed to co-ordinate the various Government Departments and the local authority's response to the problems of the inner city. Over a year ago the Partnership Committee agreed that there should be a special sub-committee to tackle the issue of income maintenance—the technical jargon for how people keep body and soul together from week to week. That sub-committee has never met because the DHSS has never been able to agree on its terms of reference. Of all the DHSS delays in Lambeth that we are considering tonight, that is the least excusable.

Government staffing cuts, coinciding with cuts in the value of benefit and the introduction of new and complicated regulations, are creating thousands of hidden but desperate tragedies and crises among pensioners and families, particularly single parent families, in Lambeth. I hope that the Minister will take urgent action to alleviate the unnecessary hardship that exists just two miles from the House, and, as I said at the beginning, I suspect in many other constituencies as well.

4.16 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton)

When I answered a parliamentary question tabled by the hon. Member for Lambeth, Central (Mr. Tilley) on 12 July in which he asked me for fairly extensive reports on the manpower position in his local Department of Health and Social Services offices, I wondered if he would make some use of it. We virtually had to hire a special van to deliver the volume of information that we provided instead of send mg it through the post. Some use of that information is clearly apparent from his speech today.

I recognise both the sincerity and vigour with which the hon. Gentleman has put the problems that he finds in his constituency. I do not want to give the impression that I dismiss the problems to which he has drawn attention or that I do anything other than recognise that this is not an easy time in many DHSS offices, especially those dealing with supplementary benefit claims against the background of the rise in the number of such claimants in recent years.

It is not appropriate to discuss the reasons for that rise, but it exists and it has undoubtedly created many problems in our local offices.

Many of the schemes that we operate, including the supplementary benefit scheme, have undergone a transition. To some extent, the new supplementary benefit scheme that was introduced in 1980 is still experiencing a settling down period. In addition, we have recently introduced new procedures and payment methods for those in receipt of both sickness benefit and supplementary benefit. Again, that creates some difficulties.

Another point that I must make regarding current problems may be less comforting to the hon. Gentleman and he may less readily accept it. In his constituency, as in others within the Greater London council area, we have also had to cope over the past few months with additional difficulty arising from considerable confusion and extra work on claimants' rates bills, supplementary rate demands and refunds following the frequently changing position over London Transport costs. Again, the circumstances it would be wrong to enter into a political slanging match about who is to blame for that. However, within London that has undoubtedly created significant difficulties of a kind that, frankly, the DHSS could not readily have planned for and which have contributed to the problems on which the hon. Gentleman has touched.

We are at a traditionally difficult time of year for DHSS offices, because they are in the throes of an uprating in preparation for the new rates passed by the House a week or two ago, and payable from November. Alongside that routine exercise for November are the partial start for the new housing benefit scheme and other, lesser, changes in the supplementary benefit scheme.

Another seasonal problem is the annual influx of claims from school leavers and students. Within the next 12 months we shall have to transfer the remainder of suitable cases on to housing benefit and also cope with the implications of the new statutory sick pay scheme on the national insurance side. I have repeated what I said at the outset because I do not want to minimise the task that faces staff in local offices or the problems that are faced by them and sometimes by claimants such as the unemployed and single parents. Those problems are undoubtedly sometimes considerable.

I particularly welcomed some of what the hon. Gentleman said because neither he nor I, as I said in an earlier debate, would want to paint an unduly gloomy picture. I welcome his remarks about the efforts that staff loyally and conscientiously make to deal with claimants' problems in such circumstances. I sometimes think that it is a pity that more appreciation is not expressed about the number of cases that are dealt with properly and well. In a year, the system deals with huge numbers of people and claims. The hon. Gentleman rightly acknowledged that it is often easy to pick out the cases that do not work well and to convey the impression that that is the norm.

In my judgment, at least, the norm is that the system works surprisingly well in meeting the needs of claimants despite the number of cases. The staff work hard and well to do the best that they can for those whom they are trying to serve. I emphasise that my colleagues in the Department very much appreciate these efforts. They are also appreciated by hon. Members. Since becoming a Minister some four or five months ago, I have been particularly encouraged by the number of hon. Members who have come up to me in the corridors of the House and told me what a good service they get as Members of Parliament through their contacts with their local offices. I place that on record because the hard and loyal work done by the staff and managers in our offices and the service that they provide to claimants, together with the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman outlined, is an important part of the picture.

After giving that broad background I shall turn to the complementing system operated in the Department to ensure that the staffing arrangements are matched, to the best of our ability, with the work load. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is one of those who labours under the impression that we do not have a system that is designed to set the staffing levels and to provide local office managers with the resources to handle that heavy work load and that takes into account all the factors that have been described.

The complementing system, by which we decide on the complements of staff issued to each DHSS region, starts by assessing the number of staff we need nationally to do the work on hand. We add to that in respect of the work we expect to have to handle within the next complementing period. Those estimates are based on the proposed legislative and procedural changes that we plan to introduce and also, importantly, on forecasts of changes in the "load"—the size of our clientele and the number of claims. In making those forecasts we take account of changes in unemployment levels, population size and distribution, and other factors that are likely to influence the amount of work that we have to do.

We have to bear in mind the fact that not all our work is evenly spread thoughout the year. Like many other businesses we have peaks and troughs and we need to provide some flexibility to cope with them. We need a margin of safety to cope with the unexpected, such as a strike or an epidemic. All those factors are taken into account in the provision of manpower. Most is provided in terms of permanent posts, though, in order to give the necessary flexibility for the peaks and the unexpected, some is provided by way of a reserve which is expressed in terms of "man years" rather than permanent posts. The reserve is usually used to employ casual staff or to enable permanent staff to work overtime. I want to emphasise that it is a vital part of the resources that we have allocated to meet the demands of the work to be done, and we make every effort to utilise this reserve element to the full.

Part of the problem in the offices in the constituency of the hon. Member for Lambeth, Central, about which I have been able to make more detailed inquiries, is that the trade union side is opposed to, and in many offices in his constituency is virtually preventing, the use of overtime and casual staff to meet the peaks of demand that we have at present. I do not want to embark on an attack on the trade union side, but that attitude does not help against the background of a system that has to be partly based on the use of temporary measures such as casual staff and overtime to meet inevitable peaks and troughs. It makes it difficult for the best complementing system to cope entirely with the difficulties which face his offices at the present.

We are negotiating to overcome the problem about the use of casual staff and overtime. It is an important part of the problem facing the offices which the hon. Member for Lambeth, Central has discussed this evening.

The hon. Member has suggested that the staff whom we provide cannot keep up with the increases in the work because their numbers are not keeping pace with the rise in claims. The system I have described in broad terms is a sophisticated one which does not simply tie staff numbers to claims in a strict relationship. To a degree it is misleading to relate figures of claims to staff as he did by quoting the parliamentary answer that I gave him earlier in the year.

The complementing system takes account of increasing claims, but it also attends to many other factors, such as the different amounts of work generated by different types of claims, the changes in procedures and policies, and to the forecast changes in loads—their size, type and duration. It also checks and adjusts staffing levels at frequent intervals to ensure that the right staffing provision is being made—in other words, how closely actual experience matches the forecast. The system provides a national complement of staff which is shared out between the regions. Local and regional managers are responsible for allocating and adjusting staff numbers at the local level in the light of local circumstances.

I shall specifically ask the appropriate regional office to look at the hon. Member's area and to consider whether there is anything that it can do to provide additional help to mitigate the long waiting times to which he has referred—and which I have noticed from the reports made to me—for people to be seen in some of the local offices when they are making supplementary benefit claims.

I should like to look at some of the cases that the hon. Member has mentioned if he will provide me with further details. There is a case that I remember corresponding with him about and at which I looked closely. I was pleased that we were able to agree an ex gratia payment to his music teacher constituent. I already have details of that case and I shall look at it again to see why the ex gratia payment has not yet been made. I shall institute urgent inquiries to resolve the matter quickly. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to look at other cases, and lets me have details, I shall do so.

I am not sure whether in recent years the Department has adequately explained the complementing system to the public or even to its staff. As I said in a recent parliamentary answer to the hon. Gentleman and earlier in the year to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), we are preparing a guide to the complementing system which I hope will make it readily understandable to the public. We intend to place it in the Library, and I shall arrange for a copy to be sent to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that we can make it more widely available to the staff throughout the country so that the sophisticated and complicated system is more fully explained and can be better judged by those who are part of it and those who are affected by it.

I recognise that what I have said will not completely remove the hon. Gentleman's anxieties. I am not saying that there are no difficulties. I hope that he will feel that I have replied constructively. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having raised the matter even at this hour. It has given me an opportunity to say something about our complementing system, to pay tribute to the staff and managers in our local offices for the job that they are doing and to assure the hon. Gentleman that we have the difficulties very much in mind and are keen to do everything practicable to assist.