Our fifth item of business is a report back on a visit by Linda Fabiani, Alex Johnstone and Ken Macintosh to Glasgow’s Department for Work and Pensions service centre, on 3 June, to examine the operation in practice of universal credit in Scotland. I invite Alex Johnstone to give a short summary of the visit.
I will try to keep it short. The committee met Mike Baker, operations director for universal credit throughout the UK, and his team, which included the manager of the Glasgow service centre, Moira Watson. We discussed with them the implementation process, had first-hand experience of the process and met some of the people involved. The management team felt that universal credit was a better system than legacy systems and that claimants were finding work faster and more easily. That applies only to those who have access to universal credit—single people in the specific areas in which the system has been rolled out. It was explained to us that roll-out had been cautious to allow the DWP to learn many lessons from early implementation. The staff mentioned that 800 issues had been flagged up through their feedback loops and that those were being dealt with.
We also met staff from the Inverness office who had been involved in implementing the pilot there. They took the view that universal credit was easier to operate than legacy systems. The focus is more on employment. The fact that claimants no longer needed to move between benefits was seen as a major advantage, as was the existence of a single contact phone number. The majority of claimants—80 per cent—had completed their claims online without assistance, although assistance is available at the job centre. That was a much higher rate than anticipated.
Other issues that emerged included the fact that universal credit may be more expensive to administer than legacy systems because of the coaching costs, although it is hoped that savings might be made in the administration of the new benefit.
The switch from paper to digital makes the system much faster. The initial estimate that is available online of when claims will be paid and how much is likely to be paid is very popular. Staff who previously only handled phone calls now process applications online. Operating the system with housing benefit and social landlords is a new area of activity for the DWP, and we spoke to individuals who were engaged in that process.
There have been fewer complaints than were initially expected, given that claimants are required to devote 35 hours a week to the job search process. There seems to be no public data yet on consumer satisfaction. We welcomed the opportunity to talk to people who were sitting at desks and dealing with claims in real time, which indicated that staff in the DWP are finding that the system is flexible and allows them to do their job effectively.
That was very helpful. Are there comments from the other members who were on the visit?
I was very impressed by a marked commitment among the staff in Glasgow to assisting people. There is nothing that I would disagree with in what Alex Johnstone said. My one caveat is that we should bear in mind that the pilot is for single people. I think that universal credit will be much more complicated when it starts to affect folk beyond that group.
We worked through an example that started with a single person and got more and more complicated.
There was a dog involved, I think.
Yes.
We are talking about the perspective of the staff—the people running the system—and not that of the recipients. Given public concern about the role of universal credit, we were all struck by how enthusiastic the staff were about the potential for improvement. At the same time, we were very conscious that they were mostly young males. I got the impression that there were more men than women; they were certainly all young single people—
The claimants, not the staff.
Yes—the claimants, not the staff.
It is difficult to jump to any conclusions as a result of the visit. Universal credit is a complex system. There is live interaction with the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs website, which allows staff to make an initial estimate of how much claimants will receive, which the claimants find very useful.
We were also struck by the low level of complaints about the system. I think that that is because people are told an indicative figure—not an exact figure—quite early on. Some of the benefits were obvious. We will see the complications as it rolls out.
That is all helpful to us in continuing to build up a picture of the system. I thank the members involved for giving us a comprehensive report. We will keep an eye on the issue as we move forward.
13:01 Meeting continued in private until 13:05.Previous
Subordinate Legislation