MR JOHN WHEATLEY

22 MARCH 2004

  Q460 Chairman: That is good to know.

  Mr Wheatley: There are a number of examples around the country. In Woking, for example, the local authority and the bureau got together, worked out a data sharing protocol, copied off the data protection requirements and now the bureau there has access to the council's systems for housing benefit purposes, so if a client comes into the bureau they are able to tell them what their position is regarding housing benefit and do most of the stages of making a claim.

  Q461 Chairman: Did that have a big cost to the council?

  Mr Wheatley: I think the cost was minimal. We are talking tens of thousands of pounds rather than anything more. In Uttlesford also recently, just last week I think it was, it was announced that a bid to the e-Innovations Fund had succeeded. That will similarly give the bureau access to the council's data, allow people in the bureau to make applications for temporary housing, housing benefit and so on. It is possible to do these things quite simply.

  Q462 Chairman: Does that have any potential, do you think, for increasing take-up?

  Mr Wheatley: I think it does inevitably. Bureaux now are regularly involved with take-up work. At the moment it is limited to the housing benefit sphere because that is the benefit that is administered by local authorities but I see no reason why that should not be extended elsewhere. [4]One of the unfortunate arrangements we have got with the Pension Service at the moment, with whom we are negotiating agreements locally for the Pension Service to run surgeries within our bureaux because there is this call centre model, is that if we get a client in who needs a referral to the Pension Service to claim pension credit, we cannot just say, "Oh, we have got someone from the Pension Service in the bureau". They have to go through the phone system before they can make a claim. There are some simple things like that which ought to be straightened out.

  Q463 Andrew Selous: Do you not think we need to put a little bit more effort into ensuring best practice is shared? You have given us the example of the CAB in Woking and that sounds an excellent scheme. It strikes me that there must be individual examples of this sort of thing up and down the country where it is happening; yet other bureaux and other local housing authorities are in the dark. Do you almost need to require people to share best practice? That might be going a little far but do you not think that we need to do more in this regard?

  Mr Wheatley: I certainly do; I agree with that entirely. We are taking the lessons from what is happening locally and putting together starter packs because there is a vast amount of interest within bureaux and within local authorities about how it is done. Very often you get bureaux and local authorities that recognise the need to share information but do not know whether it can be done legally or what the technical processes are, what systems you need to have in place, how compatible are the bureau systems and the local authority systems. [5]

  Q464 Andrew Selous: I will bet you there are local authorities up and down the country that think the Data Protection Act would be a bar to them doing that. I would lay money on that.

  Mr Wheatley: Yes indeed. In one of the bureaux that recently got money to do it the original objection was that data protection rules forbade it, but it turns out that it is surmountable. We are putting together material for bureaux to use which will be available to local authorities also so that that best practice can be shared. Also, I hope that the people sponsoring these e-innovations bids from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister would also be looking at ways of sharing successful projects around.

  Chairman: It is a culture thing really, is it not? The committee some time ago were up in Tameside who had a windfall, a bit of capital receipt which they invested very heavily in IT infrastructure and they were miles ahead of anything I had seen elsewhere at that stage. John, if on one side of A4, and I am not looking for giving you extra work, you could give us a little explanation of that Woking experience it would be very helpful for us.

  Rob Marris: And a copy of the starter pack would be very helpful.

  Chairman: Thank you very much for your appearance.

5   Further information about Woking CAB's link with Woking Borough Council is being supplied to the Committee, along with an overview of the "starter pack" for bureaux seeking to make similar links. Back