WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL 1998

RT HON HARRIET HARMAN, MS ANN BAILEY AND MR MARC CAVEY

  160. We have discovered in other evidence that has been given to us that schemes are more successful where that is the case. One final, quick question. Do you have statistics, or are you building up statistics on how many of those jobs are full-time jobs and how many are part-time jobs?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) Yes, we do have those statistics. We will be publishing them once they are accumulated and, as I said, we also ask what type of job it is, what the wages are, how much they are better off by, how long they have been on Income Support and whether it is a temporary or a permanent job. I think it is wrong to see a temporary job as a kind of bad outcome. Sometimes I think the mother will say she wants a temporary job just to put the toe in the water and therefore for her she does not want a permanent job because she wants to see how it works out and whether she is really on for this. Therefore the role of temporary work is sometimes what the mother wants, to see whether or not she can combine working outside the home with her family responsibilities.

  161. But you will be publishing all these statistics which you are collating?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) Yes.

  162. Routinely, every so often and perhaps you could send them to us routinely?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) Yes. I think we will be publishing them as part of the evaluation and we are making absolutely sure from the outset that, as Mr Cavey reminded us, this information is all being collected and the sort of information that we have asked the Personal Advisers to collect was established as part of the academic study. We thought in advance of what we would need to know and because it is very innovative and pioneering we have asked for more information than we might otherwise want. We certainly did not want to find out that there was some question which we did not want to start asking when the programme was already nine months old.

  163. There is one thing I would like to clarify before I bring Judy Mallaber in. You mentioned evaluation and you mentioned the Autumn. Now I have got a written answer from your colleague, Keith Bradley, here which is suggesting it is Autumn 1999 that you were referring to as when the evaluation will be available?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I think it is Autumn this year that the first year's evaluation will be available.[2] Obviously we are going to do continuous evaluation and monitoring and after the first year we will no doubt review how we want the next bit of monitoring to be, but I will be—

  164. Perhaps you will clarify that for us?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I will get back to you on that, Chairman.

  165. Could I explore through Mr Cavey and Ms Bailey a bit more what happens when people come through the door, because I think as a Committee we need to be able to identify what are the barriers to work and to training that there are at the moment that can be overcome within existing provision, but then also identify what the barriers are where we might want to make policy suggestions because at the moment they cannot be dealt with? So I think we maybe need to identify those two areas? Now when people come through the door, obviously you are giving them encouragement, help, advice on what is currently available. May I ask two questions? The first thing is how long do you think, as Personal Advisers, can you keep it up at this level of encouragement and advice and assistance and are we going to wear you out completely and how many are we going to need around the country? It is a huge commitment on your part. Is it something that can be kept up over a long term programme within the Employment Service?
  (Mr Cavey) We have had a lot because we are the prototype, we have had a lot of administration work and things to do, so it has been a heavy workload because of all the getting in touch with lone parents and contacting them and letting them know what is happening. As I understand it, when the scheme becomes a national scheme there are going to be administration teams who are going to be able to help the Advisers so that is going to be a load off their back anyway. Obviously when people come in and we see them it is really about trying to identify their basic needs and we try to be as flexible as we can about whether people are interested in work and training. There has been no pressure on us so far so we can explore the best options. I think being given quite a big degree of autonomy helps because it means we can spend as much time or as little time with the person as we need to. We can arrange our own diaries and it is good from that point of view.

  166. I, of course, have been very encouraged by the commitment of the Personal Advisers and the kind of programmes on the under 25 year olds, but it does require personal commitment and we are obviously all seeking to make that culture change in the Employment Service in total. What views do you have on the possibility of being able to spread that to your colleagues as well and change the environment in which you are working?
  (Ms Bailey) I think both of us came into the job with a lot of enthusiasm and we have managed to keep that enthusiasm going and I think that in itself is infectious. Some of the clients who come in to see us will come in maybe very shy and very timid, but I think that by the time they have left us they have caught the enthusiasm from us.
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I think the way that the motivation sustains itself are when things are working. When things are working everything speeds along and as Ms Bailey said, it is infectious and that is really evidence of how it is working. The enthusiasm of the Personal Advisers is because they are doing a job that they feel is making a difference.

  167. If they come in, and you are saying you want to help them do what they want, but let us say that that requires them to have some extra money to pay to go on a training course or the associated expenses, what funds or what can you advise them about how they can get any assistance towards it or do you come up against a dead block?
  (Mr Cavey) Up until April there was not a great deal we could do in trying to help them with the money side of things, but since Phase 2 of the New Deal for Lone Parents has come in we actually do have access now, if people need to pay course fees or something, to be able to help them to do that and I think certainly up to £1,000 I think. I think if it is above £1,000 then our Manager has to take it a little bit higher in that regard.

  168. Secretary of State, is that going to be a continuing fund that is available as the programme extends nationwide?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) That is why the £20 million was put in, to actually finance pre-work training if that was required. So that is the money that Mr Cavey is talking about up to a certain level. If there is not one of the courses that Ms Bailey talked about earlier which is already there which they can actually point the lone parent in the direction of which is already paid for, then there is some money in the Personal Adviser's back pocket to finance some training. Of course with the extra injection of the £10 million from the budget we are going to see them being able to have the £750 grant plus continuing to use the £20 million.

  169. Do you feel that is going to be necessary to bill that as a continuing part of our employment and training programmes into the future past this pilot? Secondly, a connected one on training providers. What incentives are there for them to put on the courses that we need to deal with lone parents. Again that is going to need to be a continuing rather than presumably a pilot programme?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I do foresee pre-work support for training being available nationally once we have done these pilots, because we assume that the pilots are going to show us what works and show us the value of it. So I do assume—and that is why we are piloting it—that it will tell us where we need to put future investment. So I do assume that pre-work training is going to be a continuing and developing part of the programme. As far as TECs ensuring that their training providers provide courses which are at family-friendly times, one of the levers for that is information. If we know that there is an area where there is a family-friendly training desert, then that will become evident and we will not only have the anecdotal information at local level from the Personal Advisers but we will also be able to see that clearly, so I think the gathering of information about not just the cost of courses, but the framework on which these courses run, is going to be very important to help the Government take this policy forward.

  170. Those are some of the issues as to what we could do within the current framework or the developing framework, but I would also like to ask Mr Cavey and Ms Bailey about your failures, not because they are your failures but because they are the barriers that we might need to address into the future. What do people come into you with that you are just not in a position to be able to resolve or to go to the Secretary of State and say: "Come on, give us a bit of dosh or give us a bit of help" or whatever? What do people come to you and say that you cannot actually help with, which we as a Committee should be looking at?
  (Ms Bailey) The outstanding problem and I do not know if there is anything you can do about that, is people with mortgages. Somebody who has a mortgage and is on Income Support can get help.

  171. They are out of work?
  (Ms Bailey) Yes. On Income Support, with the interest on a mortgage, but once somebody is back in work and on Family Credit that help stops. So not only do they have to find everything they used to find, but they also have to find the mortgage repayments.
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) They can get their rent paid, but they cannot get their mortgage paid and that is consistent across not just the area that Ms Bailey and Mr Cavey are working in, although it is a particular issue because you have got high housing costs in your area, lots of home ownership, lots of mortgages.

  172. It has happened in my area on other programmes, too. So you say that is the main problem that people are coming to you with?
  (Ms Bailey) I think that is overriding, yes.
  (Mr Cavey) It is a big problem when you have people going back to work full-time, but a lot of people we have helped back to work have gone back part-time because it is more family-friendly and if they are going back to work part-time with the sort of money that will pay and then have to try and find their full mortgage repayment, that is nigh-on impossible.
  (Ms Bailey) One of the other issues raised with us was about people having to give up their Order Books and being reluctant to do that if they are getting on to something that has an allowance. That is something we are coming across as a problem.

  173. Training for work, yes. Is there any reason why it should have to be done that way, Secretary of State? It has been identified as a problem that people are reluctant to give up their Order Book because that is like the security that you have got for continuing payments and you might be on a course that is not going to go on forever and you are worried about what will happen at the end of it?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) We are looking at all of those issues. Sometimes the security that people need is a person on the inside track who can say to them: "Yes, it is worthwhile you taking this job. You can safely stop being on Income Support and give up your Order Book and we will make absolutely sure that your Family Credit comes through" and this is where the fast path for Family Credit has been so absolutely critical. Lone parents are risk averse; they cannot take any risk because they are the only person their children can rely on and therefore we are looking at all the issues of how we take the risk out of the system so that we do not ask them to take a risk as well as take that big step. This is one of the issues that we will obviously be addressing around the introduction of the Working Family Tax Credit which is that the end of Income Support and the commencement of the Working Family Tax Credit has got to be seamless. Lone parents will not contemplate a gap in their income. Most people are unwilling to contemplate a gap in their income if they have to borrow money or it compromises their housing or something like that, but lone parents who have children to feed and to give their bus fares to, they cannot be expected to take a risk and therefore how the system sorts out that risk for them is very important indeed. The Personal Advisers, just by being there and helping with the fast path to Family Credit have made a big difference, but you rightly point out that we will identify more areas where we can give guarantees, give reassurances, move things forward in order to ensure that they do not have to take a risk. We want to help them into work; it is crazy if the system makes them make it a risk about getting into work.

  174. May I just ask one question which extends it beyond lone parents as well, because we are looking at barriers to work for unemployed women seeking work generally. I just wonder whether you wish to make any broader comments that you would like us to look at in relation to other groups of unemployed women who maybe do not have access to any programmes at the moment at all, say partners of JSA claimants?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) That was the one group that you have given me the opportunity to highlight, without being a planted question, I might add.

  175. It was not. It was not a planted question at all; indeed, none of these questions have been planted.
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) It is crazy that the system assumed that if you were the spouse or partner of a young, unemployed man and you had no children that nevertheless your benefit status was as full time housewife requiring full time benefit and that is why we have made what I believe to be a very important extension to the New Deal for the Young Unemployed to say that it applies to under 25 childless spouses or partners. It is very odd when you look at single women who are without a partner and they are expected to go into the world of work if they do not have children. The idea that by being married you are assumed to be a dependant, including if you are married to an unemployed person, does not make sense at all. It is a very old fashioned view, so we have changed that. We have really extended to them the opportunities and the obligations for their under 25 husbands or partners.

  176. I am going to bring Yvette Cooper and Eleanor Laing back in, but can I introduce something before I do that which I found rather shocking and disturbing when I heard about it from Rowntree, namely that 30 per cent of lone mothers are either too ill themselves to work or have a child who is so ill that the mother cannot work and that really what Rowntree said to us was that you needed a Welfare to Health programme before you could actually have the Welfare to Work programme? Now is this one of the things that you are trying to deal with?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I was very interested in that Rowntree report because we are looking very broadly at what the issues are that determine why people are not in the world of work and why they are on benefit, particularly why they are on long term benefit. I cannot say at this particular stage that we have a well developed and ready to roll programme arising out of the Rowntree research, because one of the things that I also want to emphasise is that we have a huge undertaking here just in rolling out the New Deal for Lone Parents from the first eight areas to nationally and one of the things that we are absolutely concerned to do is to maintain the quality of the existing programme. One of the things that has really set the New Deal for Lone Parents apart from so many other things that have been going on in the past is the quality of the service. Therefore we are looking at the future all the time to see where things might need to be developed, but we are also very focused on not taking on too much, overloading ourselves with lots of different lines of argument and different approaches and therefore undermining the basic thing that we are engaged in which is this personal advice and information support.

  177. I can well understand that and you are quite right to do that, but can you in your other capacity as Minister for Women and as a Cabinet Member impress upon the Department of Health that if the problem is as great as Rowntree describe, and I am sure it is, then that is something that we all ought to be paying a great deal of attention to?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I know that it is something that Tessa Jowell, as the Minister for Public Health, has been very concerned about, yes.

  178. How much has all this good work been scuppered by shortage of family-friendly employment?
  (Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman) I think there are a number of strands in our Welfare to Work programme for women, for lone parents in particular. First, the help and advice; there are four strands, firstly the help and advice. This is the Personal Adviser service. Secondly, there is helping make work pay and that is the improved Working Family Tax Credit topping up the pay of people who can perhaps only work 16 or 17 hours. Then there is helping them with the extra costs that they have and the principal cost of course is childcare and that is the Childcare Tax Credit. But the fourth part of our Welfare to Work programme, which is critical for women, is just as we are modernising the Employment Service and the Social Security System to take into account the new aspirations of women to work, so the world of work has to change to recognise that the employee of Beveridge's day, around which the welfare state was built, which is the able-bodied male worker with a wife at home looking after his children, is not the sort of employee who is the inevitable employee in today's workplace. Therefore, the issue of sorting out statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance which is a very difficult programme for employers to run; they find it very complicated. It is bad enough for large employers, but for small employers it is just a nightmare for them to be doing the calculation and claiming the refund. Women find it very hard to calculate their entitlement and to claim it. You have to count backwards and forwards from all sorts of different dates and none of them that correspond properly. There is a complete mis-match between pay entitlement and leave entitlement; again the system is not consistent between statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay. One-fifth of women at work are below the lower earnings limit so anyway do not get any statutory maternity pay. I think part-time workers still lack rights and therefore there is not the choice available to do part-time work with the same rights and that is where the implementation of the Part-time Workers' Directive is so important. We are committed to, quite rightly, the Parental Leave Directive which is about time off for family reasons and we obviously have to look at time off for fathers. We are saying fathers should accept their responsibilities. Well, they want to accept their responsibilities, but they should have rights too, rights to time off work particularly around the time of the birth. So I think that that is work which is going on between us and the Department of Trade and Industry; we are talking to employers. We want to help women into work but it has to be work which they can do and still keep their family responsibilities, so that they can balance their work and family responsibilities. So-family-friendly employment I am sure is something—I hope—that this Committee will take a big interest in. It is a very complex issue involving the role of the Government, the role of individuals, but also the role of private employers.

  179. And with that as a sort of forward looking agenda, right now how much are you finding that as a problem? How much are Ms Bailey and Mr Cavey finding that there are just not enough jobs available locally that are compatible with what a women needs with childcare arrangements or whatever it might be?
  (Ms Bailey) I think maybe the biggest problem that we have come up against quite recently is the women who want to work term-time only. They do not want to leave their children for six weeks in the summer and three weeks at Easter and so I think that is maybe where temporary work comes in.
  (Mr Cavey) Because we do interview lone parents who for whatever personal reason they have, just do not want to leave their children with anyone or put them in the care of anyone else. They are the sort of people who come in and ask if there are any jobs going in a local school or something because if we were talking about stumbling blocks it would be that sort of thing. They see obviously publicity about problems with various sources of childcare and that has quite big effects.