1. The impact of welfare reform on third sector care and support services in Scotland Gregory White IRISS/University of Sheffield 1#WRScotland2014 1

2. The project 2#WRScotland2014 Outline and research questions Identifying the main issues Key findings and some initial thoughts Recommendations

3. 1. The project outline 3#WRScotland2014

4. 17 interviews 5 organisations 3 research questions 4#WRScotland2014

5. 5 How are social services practitioners – particularly voluntary sector care and support providers – in Scotland being impacted by the reforms to welfare? What other evidence can we use to predict the impact of welfare reform on social service providers given the limited evidence? What do we know about the response from service providers to the impact of welfare reform on organisational and staffing issues?

6. 2. The context 6#WRScotland2014

7. 7 Changes to welfare system arguably the most controversial since its inception following the Second World War Concerns expressed welfare reform leading to greater debt, homelessness, and family break up or worsening physical and mental health The UK welfare reforms enacted were followed by the Welfare Reform (Further Provision) (Scotland) Act 2012

8. 8#WRScotland2014 Beatty et al. (2013a) state that: “the reforms matter because they affect so many people. In total across Britain, nearly 2.6 million men and women of working age were out-of-work on disability benefits in 2011, far more than the 1.5 million out-of-work on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) even in the wake of recession” Beatty et al, 2013: 134).

9. A Citizens Advice Scotland report anticipates impact on particular groups: families, the jobless and those with disabilities – with disabled people facing the biggest challenge of all (Dryburgh and Lancashire, 2011). 9#WRScotland2014

10. Changing attitudes #WRScotland201410

11. Changing attitudes #WRScotland201411 28% of those surveyed thought the government should be spending more on social security, even if that led to higher taxes – compared with 43% in 2001 62% of those surveyed thought that unemployment benefits were too high – compared with 54% in 2007 (Park et al., 2012) British Social Attitudes Survey

12. Impact on workforce and organisations #WRScotland201412 Increased demand for services Precarious financial environment Changes to organisational structure Impact on staff roles, wellbeing and morale

13. 3. Key findings and some initial thoughts 13#WRScotland2014

14. Personal anxiety 14#WRScotland2014

15. 15#WRScotland2014 “Yea, because, we have a very stressful job anyway, and we generally have a lot of our staff have a like kind of burnout period in maybe about three years and they would like to maybe move on after that because it’s so intense here, and I think welfare reform maybe add to that pressure, and universal credit certainly will…”

16. Increasing workloads 16#WRScotland2014

17. 17 “Oh, definitely, I’ve observed the huge volume of work that’s placed on the housing officers, and obviously because I’m aware that they’ve got this extra work I try and take on tasks from them to help them out so it does impact…”

18. Workplace turnover 18#WRScotland2014

19. 19#WRScotland2014 “You’re losing experienced workers and you’re having to go through the process of recruiting new workers and stuff like that so looking at it from that point of view and then that affects you personally speaking because then you are getting new folk into the team and you’ve an established team so I suppose when you maybe think about it, it’s actually a bigger effect than what you think…”

20. Adapting services & diverting resources 20#WRScotland2014

21. 21 “Well, because we do have a lot of clients that are on small packages and do need help you know with housework, domestic chores, shopping, when things like this come through you know to do with benefits, bedroom tax, things like that, and especially if they’re only getting two hours you could be spending a lot of time dealing with benefit changes, the bedroom tax, council, you know things like that and it could eat up their full two hours…”

22. Accessing other services 22#WRScotland2014

23. 23#WRScotland2014 “Yes, I’m very, to tell you the truth I’m very disappointed in the way people are sanctioned by The Job Centre, I’m very disappointed in the way that people are, sometimes treated, I don’t say that its not required sometimes, I’m not there to make the call to make the judgement, but I have uh, become aware on two or three occasions last year, people who’ve come in here in absolute crisis with money because they’ve been sanctioned and seemingly quite unjustly, quite unfairly…”

24. Support & training issues 24#WRScotland2014

25. 25 “Yea, because when I found out that obviously, obviously the benefits was changing, and everything, I actually went online myself and looked them up and stuff, just due to, I feel it’s best that I understand them before I’m out in the field trying to explain them to my clients because you need to obviously, certain clients you have to break it down to like the simplest form for them to understand…”

26. Human resource issues 26#WRScotland2014

27. 27#WRScotland2014 “…It might, yea, it might, I mean I think you know, I certainly wasn’t happy about losing out on terms and conditions on my employment I understand the reasons for it as an organisation… it does, it does sort of, you know, it does sort of make you, sort of look around to see what else is out there you know…”

28. Accompanying pressures 28#WRScotland2014

29. 29#WRScotland2014 “Well for a start I’ve lost three thousand pound off my salary, there’s quite a significant it was nine, well nine point five per cent salary cut, and that’s obviously had an impact, not just me but in the whole there is the possibility of uh, future salary reduction…”

30. Projecting into the future 30#WRScotland2014

31. 31 “If these welfare changes continue I think we are going to see more stress in the families, more anxieties, more conflict, pressures on family relationships, which will lead to family breakdown, more child homelessness, kids going to bed hungry at night because there’s no money, kids going to bed cold, waking up cold, that feeding into a lack of engagement in school, an increase in truancy levels, and so on…”

32. #WRScotland201432 “I can see a lot of them ending up in rent arrears where they could lose their homes, you know, a lot of them could end up with less money, with the benefit changes, which will be very, you know trying to get them to, do, to work out how to spend their money…”

33. Some initial thoughts 33#WRScotland2014

34. 34#WRScotland2014 Social services workforce experiencing multiple pressures Contending with a greater workload Reduction in pay & conditions Organisations have to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances Lack of engagement and cooperation Support & training needs to improve

35. 4. Recommendations? 35#WRScotland2014

36. Acknowledgements Thank you to the following organisations that participated and contributed to the research project: SCVO, CPAG Scotland, Citizens Advice Scotland, Includem, The Improvement Service, Carers Scotland, Enable Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Blackwood, Inclusion Scotland, Scottish Welfare Fund, Children in Scotland, The Action Group, Turning Point Scotland 36#WRScotland2014

37. The impact of welfare reform on third sector care and support services in Scotland A joint IRISS/CCPS project supported through the ESRC internship scheme @wrscotland #WRScotland14 http://blogs.iriss.org.uk/welfarereformscotland 2014 37#WRScotland2014