Challenges facing the Social Fund NAWRA Conference 5 th June 2009

The Social Fund – at the beginning First discussed in 1985 Introduced in April 1988 and replaced the Single Payment Scheme Made up of regulated and discretionary payments All applications had to be in writing One application to the Fund as a whole Over 120 local offices and locally managed grants and loans budgets

The Social Fund – 2009 Now been in place 21 years Crisis loan applications can be made by telephone Grants and crisis loans can be considered on the same application but budgeting loans stand on their own A centralised Jobcentre Plus with 20 Social Fund offices and 23 grant budgets One national loans budget managed centrally

Challenges facing the Social Fund Level of need the community care grant budget can meet generally Inequities the current distribution of the budget creates Pensioner awareness of the Social Fund and its review process Access to the fund, particularly to crisis loans Standard of decision making in Jobcentre Plus Welfare reform Other demands on the Social Fund Delays in getting case papers from Jobcentre Plus to IRS

Community care grant budget The current community care grant budget is £141,000,000 for Great Britain and has been this amount for 3 years. The pressure on this budget is such that not all high priority needs can be met. The level of need that can be met is not consistent across Great Britain, which leads to inequities.

Pensioner awareness Awareness of the Social Fund and its review process amongst eligible people of pension age across Great Britain is very poor. Yet this group of people are likely to be in the very situations that the community care grant scheme is intended to provide help with.

Telephone access for crisis loan applications Crisis loan applications can be made either in writing or by telephone Jobcentre Plus’ preferred method of applying for living expenses is by telephone and for items is in writing If you can access the telephone it is a relatively quick and simple process and you Complaints led us to test all 0800 crisis loan direct lines – the results are poor and in 2008/2009 we had an overall success rate of 45%, down from 68% in 2007/2008 Crisis loan applications have undoubtedly increased over the last few years which shows that customers are getting through but nevertheless our results indicate that it takes time

Crisis loan living expenses reviews at IRS During 2008/2009 our intake for living expenses increased by 68% compared to 2007/2008 The proportion of crisis loans progressing to independent review is still very low and our intake remains substantially lower than during 2001/2002, the year before the introduction of telephone applications for living expenses Our intake in 2008/2009 was 26% lower than in 2001/2002 The requirement to pursue the review process in writing is one of the factors that we believe contributes to this. This makes it more difficult to obtain a review. An applicant in an emergency cannot afford to send a review request by post. However, without money he will often struggle to get to a Jobcentre office, which will often be some distance from his home

Standard of RO decisions in 2008/2009 Inspectors identified important errors in 54.4% of grant decisions. They found important errors in 68.4% of cases in which they substituted the decisions and 39.4% in the cases they confirmed. Inspectors identified important errors in 46.4% of crisis loan decisions. They found important errors in 60.3% of the decisions they substituted and 34.1% of the decisions they confirmed.

Standard of decision-making in Jobcentre Plus During 2008/2009 Jobcentre Plus has rolled out its Quality Assurance Framework to address the poor standard of decision making in Jobcentre Plus. This framework arose out of criticisms in reports from the Social Security Committee, the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee. The framework offers a robust checking, feedback and coaching regime, and has the potential to deliver real improvements.

Welfare Reform Bill The Welfare Reform Bill is currently going through Parliament and introduces a range of measures related to the Social Fund, including: Payments on account of benefit when a person makes a new claim Social Loans provided by external contractors Procurement arrangements in relation to grant awards for white goods and large items of furniture.

Welfare Reform Bill The Welfare Reform Bill removes the independent statutory review for: –social loans provided by external contractors; –grant awards of white goods and large items of furniture. It is vital that an independent review is retained for all aspects of the discretionary Social Fund, so that there is still a quick and proportionate grievance process for all customers.

Short term reforms To deal with the increasing numbers of crisis loan living expenses applications the Department has introduced new directions in Pathfinder areas in the South West from 27 th April and East Midlands from 8 th June As one of these changes will require people to attend for a crisis loan interview there needs to be adequately funded arrangements for meeting the travel costs of people required to attend these interviews and they should be made aware of these arrangements at the time of application.

Other demands on the Social Fund Inspectors have identified that they are seeing more cases from disabled people who are applying to the Fund for large pieces of specialised equipment because the local authority does not or cannot meet them because of budget.

Delays in getting casepapers from Jobcentre Plus to IRS During 2008/2009, the average time between receipt of an application for an Inspector’s review and the receipt of papers at the IRS was 8 working days, the same as last year, with only 47.9% received within 4 days and 23% taking over 10 days. The average time ranged from 3.6 to 20.1 days. The urgency of applications, and the length of time they have already spent in process at Jobcentre Plus, makes it inappropriate to delay Inspectors’ decisions where Jobcentre Plus cannot provide relevant papers within a reasonable time.

Challenges facing the Social Fund NAWRA Conference 5 th June 2009