Written evidence from Glasgow Homelessness Network

 

Executive Summary

 

  1. The National Audit Office has noted that for people subjected to DWP sanctions, “supporting them may lead to higher public spending in areas such as local authority funded welfare support”[1], and recommended that the DWP “… track how sanctions affect demand for publicly funded services”[2]

 

  1. This submission highlights several areas of increased resource cost to third sector organisations supporting people who are affected by homelessness. These resource costs have a consequential cost to the public purse, both in terms of direct funding from local authorities, and as a result of core activity around homelessness needs not being addressed. It is suggested that these areas are included in the list of “… unintended effects that the Department [DWP] needs to do more to understand”[3]

 

  1. Direct and indirect costs to the public purse which should be considered by the Committee include:

 

 

About GHN

 

  1. Glasgow Homelessness Network is a membership-based organisation representing third sector homelessness and related organisations in Glasgow. Our unique role is to evidence and advance solutions to poor housing and homelessness by connecting the knowledge and experiences of people who both live and work with the issue.

 

  1. The issue of benefit sanctions is one which impacts considerably on people affected by homelessness; a group already marginalised and excluded from much of mainstream society. The issue of benefit sanctions also impacts on organisations such as our members which exist to support homeless people. This submission focuses on the impact on services, rather than service users.

 

  1. GHN carried out a short consultation with a number of member organisations, among them homelessness day centres, supported accommodation providers, and street outreach services in order to better understand the impact on individuals subject to sanctions as well as on the organisations working to support them.

 

 

 

 

DWP Outcomes

 

  1. Our consultation with homelessness services found no evidence to suggest that the DWP’s aim of encouraging people to move into paid employment had met with success. With estimates of the proportion of service users subject to sanctions as high as 30% in one service, not one example of a person moving into employment was able to be provided. On the type of outcomes experienced by service users subject to sanctions, it was stated that “… they do they polar opposite, driving already marginalised and struggling people further out to the edge”. Other comments included that service users were “too disenfranchised, and too far from the labour market”, and that “…the most obvious impact of this policy is increased pointless compliance with the Claimant Commitment, not moves into employment”.

 

Client Engagement and Outcomes

 

  1. A reduction in the quality of engagement with sanctioned service users was evident, with a necessary refocus on survival and crisis interventions, rather than any planned progression towards goals and aspirations through learning, social involvement or other positive activities. Most services reported an increase in service users resorting to survival criminality such as shoplifting or petty theft, as well as prostitution.

 

  1. Concern was expressed that referring sanctioned service users on to relevant specialist services (for example welfare rights or advocacy) means that homelessness services can often only address immediate presentational issues, and their capacity to retain engagement and address someone’s needs in an effective holistic manner is lost.#

 

  1. Being subject to DWP sanction can stall, halt or reverse progress towards individual outcomes; they have a diversionary effect, reduce motivation and detract from goals. One member stated that, for sanctioned service users, it is “… difficult to be aspirational - towards any goal, let alone employment - when in a constant day to day crisis of poverty”. Another stated that “everything stops: [addiction] recovery, mental health, socialisation, personal hygiene, activities, etc., they all come to a halt”

 

  1. Most services reported an increase in contact with service users alongside an increase in both the frequency and intensity of support required. Where a reduction in service use by sanctioned individuals was reported, this was ascribed to a lack of money to pay for travel to the service location, with service users visiting once or twice a week for crisis and survival support, rather than continuing prior engagement in positive activities.

 

Service Delivery, Staffing and Resources

 

  1. Services reported major issues with the redirection of internal resources away from core activities to mitigating the effects on service users of DWP sanctions. This was commonly described as a “massive drain on resources”, and took several forms. The most obvious is a direct increase in staff workload from dealing with enquiries, advocacy, mandatory reconsiderations and claimant commitments.

 

 

  1. For at least one service, dealing with sanctions and other benefit issues has become its’ core activity, rather than housing and homelessness as was intended. This service has, effectively, had to reconfigure itself around the changed immediate priorities of its client group, with no additional resources available. Service managers also reported increasing staff frustration at the repetition of tasks related to dealing with the DWP, as well as the emotional cost and motivational loss to staff when service users they have worked hard together with to make progress are “knocked backwards” when they are subjected to DWP sanctions

 

Compliance, not Progression

 

  1. Services reported an increasing amount of resources being used to assist service users to comply with Claimant Commitments, for example providing access to computers, assisting with job searches and applications. This was felt to be taking increasing precedence over ‘core’ homelessness activity as well as other positive activity towards both personal goals and organisational outcomes.

 

  1. Concerns were raised that Claimant Commitments were frequently unrealistic given the level of literacies and the skill sets of individuals; and inflexible, given the chaotic nature of some individuals’ lives. Very few service users have had the 4-week leeway on work-related activity applied, as they should have if they are homeless.

 

  1. Several service managers reported having to invest resources in networking or liaison with local JobCentres, for example shadowing JCP work coaches or hosting visits from JCP staff, with the aim of increasing DWP understanding of the needs of the homeless service user group and to try to ameliorate the impact of unrealistic claimant commitments for service users. It was stated that this “… all takes up resource which wouldn’t need to be expended if the benefits system worked better”.

 

Interaction with the DWP

 

  1. Additional issues were raised around the increased resource implications of services’ interactions with the DWP on behalf of service users, among them that different job centres implement guidance in differing ways (as noted by the National Audit Office [4]); there are no direct links to individual job coaches; navigating the DWP system itself; even getting through on the phone: with staff members being tied up for 2-3 hours dealing with a single service user.

6 November 2016

References

[1]              “Department for Work and Pensions: Benefit sanctions”, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, National Audit Office, November 2016; p9

[2]              Ibid, p.10

[3]              Ibid, p38

[4]              Ibid, p21