ONE for all?
The Government has announced a radical change to the way people claim benefits. The Benefits Agency and the Employment Service are to merge in 2001, to create a new ‘ONE’ agency, where people of working age will claim most of their benefits. [footnote 1] The new Pensions Agency will be responsible for benefits for people over working age and, from 2003, the Inland Revenue will be responsible for assessing and delivering the integrated child credit and employment credits for low-paid workers. All should take advantage of information technology to share information and to pay people benefit through their wages or by automatic credit transfer into bank accounts. Only disability living allowance and attendance allowance will be left outside this new structure.

There are already ONE pilot schemes running in 12 areas. Although the Government has given assurances that it is only when these pilots are assessed in 2002 that a national scheme will be finalised and put in place, [footnote 2] it is clear that some kind of national scheme will be rolled out.

Under the ONE scheme people claiming benefits, including income support, incapacity benefit, widows’ benefits, child benefit, invalid care allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit, are allocated a personal adviser who deals with all their claims from one office and interviews them about work history, prospects and opportunities. Regulations laid from April this year [footnote 3] mean that claimants in the pilot areas must attend an interview and discuss their work prospects before they can get benefits.

Pilots run three different variants of the scheme. In Clyde Coast and Renfrew, South East Essex, Warwickshire and Lea Roding, initial contact is made to a start-up adviser who takes basic details, issues the appropriate claim forms and allocates a personal adviser. In Calderdale and Kirklees, South East Gwent, Somerset and Buckinghamshire a ‘call centre’ variant operates, where initial contact is made by the telephone. Pilots involving the private and voluntary sector delivering the start-up registration and personal adviser services have been introduced in Leeds, Suffolk, North Nottinghamshire and North Cheshire. In different areas the Benefits Agency, Employment Service and/or the local authority is taking the lead, with staff seconded from each body to each ONE office.

In pilot form the ONE scheme only applies to claimants who are not required to be available for work – jobseeker’s allowance claimants are still dealt with at their Jobcentre. CPAG is concerned that there are many vulnerable people in this group who may be alarmed and confused by the requirement to attend an interview to talk about work. Many may genuinely feel that it does not apply to them as they are unable to work because of their caring commitments or disability. Although the regulations only require claimants to attend an interview when they first claim benefit and not to take any further steps to get work unless they want to, it is very difficult to disentangle the requirement to talk about getting a job from the requirement to get a job. Additionally there are many ‘triggers’ which will give rise to a requirement to attend an interview in order to continue receiving benefit. For instance, people found unfit to work, those starting or stopping part-time work and lone parents will be required to attend an interview once a year.

Similarly, CPAG believes that it is far too harsh to remove all benefits, including housing and council tax benefit, from claimants who do not attend an interview or fail to answer fully questions while they are there. This is even more harsh than the sanction regime for jobseeker’s allowance claimants, who at least have access to hardship payments.

The Government has made it clear that it does not want to exempt any categories of people from the regulations, including those with the type of severe disability exempted from capacity for work tests for other benefits. Individual waivers or deferments may be given in cases where the interview would be of little assistance. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism under the regulations for claimants to request a waiver, deferment or home visit and they must rely on the personal adviser discerning a need.

One of the most positive aspects of the ONE scheme from claimant’s point of view is that personal advisers will be able to check that the correct benefits are being claimed, assist with claim forms and act as a single point of contact for dealing with benefit matters. However, this is not reflected in the regulations, which concentrate solely on work issues and lay down no duty for personal advisers to maximise claimants’ benefit income or inform them of their entitlements.

We shall await the outcome of the pilots with interest and hope that the Government will consider some of our concerns before deigning the national scheme.

1. HM Treasury (2000), 'Tackling Poverty and Making Work Pay: tax credits for the 21st century', The Modernisation of Britain’s Tax and Benefit System No 6 [back to text]
2. Tessa Jowell, Ninth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, 16 March 2000 [back to text]
3. Social Security (Work-focused Interview) Regulations 2000 [back to text]

Poverty 106, Summer 2000