Oral evidence: Jobcentre Plus closures in Scotland, HC 979

Oral evidence, 8 February 2017.

Witnesses

Ian Pope and Stewart Malcolm McDonald MP.

Chair

Could I welcome you both to this one-off evidence session on the Jobcentre closure programme? For the record, if you just say who you are and who you represent. We will not bother with opening statements because we only have a short amount of time available to us. We will start with you, Mr Pope.

Ian Pope

Ian Pope, Public and Commercial Services Union.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Stewart McDonald, Member of Parliament for Glasgow South.

Chair

I am grateful. I think both of you gentlemen have been involved very closely with the campaign since the first announcement last year. Could you just maybe detail—in the briefest detail—your major concerns about what has been announced? We will start with you, Mr McDonald.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

The announcement was made, as members of the Committee will know, early in December. Members of Parliament, claimants, the Scottish Government had to find out about this through the media. A letter was sent to Members some seven hours after the announcement had been made. The announcement was that eight of Glasgow's 16 Jobcentres would close. Looking at where those closures are, Chair, they are in some of the hardest-hit parts of the city in terms of poverty, employment rate and access to other services. What this will do is put disproportionate hardship not just on my constituents on the south side of Glasgow, but on Glaswegians right across the city.

Chair

Just before you answer, Mr Pope, the DWP have said that these reforms are necessary because of the falling number of claimants and more people being online in order to make these claims. Do you believe that there is a case for the reform of the Jobcentre network in Glasgow, and if not, why not?

Ian Pope

The figures, they have said unemployment has gone down in Glasgow and it has, but it is currently running at 8%, which is 3% above the national average. Unemployment itself is still high in Glasgow; child poverty has risen in Glasgow; the use of foodbanks has increased by 20% in the last two years. The figures that the Department have given, they don’t add up in that respect. There is still high unemployment; there is still the requirement for localised Jobcentres, particularly in the deprived areas of Glasgow.

Chair

Mr McDonald, do you have a view? Does it need reform, in your opinion?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

It needs enormous reform, but this is not the reform I would be seeking and it is certainly not the way I would seek to reform it. The hassle we had, for example, trying to get the consultation more publicly available—something basic like putting it on the Department’s website, which they had no plan to do—they had to be forced into doing that by Members of Parliament. So the way that they want to go about the reforms is concerning, but this actual reform in itself—the closure of half of the city’s Jobcentres—is something that I just have to oppose.

Chair

Could you maybe bring us up to date with exactly where we are just now? We had the initial pilot as it was announced in the December and then there was a subsequent announcement, which had an impact across the whole of the United Kingdom, which is still out for consultation. I don’t know if you can maybe help the Committee with this or if it is something that is for the Minister: why was there a pilot announced and then a subsequent announcement for the whole of the United Kingdom? Was there any reason for that?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I think what must have happened was that there were to be weekly announcements of office closures around the UK, but Glasgow was the first city-wide announcement in the UK. Clearly, the ramifications of the campaign of opposition from ourselves, claimant groups, MPs, the Scottish Government and others saw a halt to the announcements. Then we heard on the 27th, I think it was, of the rest of the estate, either whether it is being divested or kept. There has been a delay, but the consultation exercise for the Glasgow closures ended on 31 January and we now await the outcome of that.

Chair

I know Margaret Ferrier has a supplementary and I will come to her in a minute, but there have been a number of debates in the House, I think there have been two debates in Westminster Hall thus far, and there was a statement to the Minister. What have you made of the response from Government about the concerns that have been put and is there any satisfaction you could take from what you have heard about the current arrangements?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I have to say not really. It is obvious to me that they have made a decision, irrespective of what they might say that they are currently considering consultation responses, because they have only ever stuck to essentially a departmental crib sheet in what I can tell. That is frustrating for me and for other Members. In terms of the timeline as to where we are, the Glasgow Jobcentre closure consultation closed on 31 January. I am not clear on when we are expecting the results of that consultation to be announced, when we are expecting a decision to be announced and what the subsequent programme would be presumably between now and 2018 to eventually close half the Jobcentres. They have not been forthcoming with any of that.

Margaret Ferrier

I want to draw your attention to the fact that I have a Jobcentre in my area closing, just for the purposes of the Committee. Mr Pope, was the PCS consulted before this policy was announced—any of it before the Glasgow eight and then the next lot?

Ian Pope

Meetings have been taking place going back over the past year on possible announcements, but the actual Glasgow announcement, we only found out about 48 hours before the announcement. That is part of what we are not happy about, the lack of consultation, because if they had done it properly, if the Department had done this properly, we, who have members who are experts who work with claimants day in and day out, particularly in areas like yours, Easterhouse, and all around the city, we would have been able to tell the Department that this wouldn’t work and that their plans are wrong. Also politicians, claimant groups and claimants themselves: they would have been able to say this is wrong. We were told at very, very short notice before the announcement itself on Glasgow. A lot of this is shrouded in secrecy and whatever. There was a lot of nervousness around the Department, particularly around the Trillium contract, which was expiring on 31 March. I think if information had come out earlier, there was a possibility of rent being put up on the estate and whatever, so the Department were very nervous about that, but as I say, it was only really 48 hours’ notice we got.

Margaret Ferrier

Have you any idea why it was Glasgow they chose first of all and why half of the Jobcentres are closing? Was it not 20% across the case, whereas in Glasgow it is eight of 16, which is 50% of the Jobcentres?

Ian Pope

The Chancellor announced in the 2015 autumn statement that there was to be a 20% reduction in the DWP estate. That is the point that a lot of people are making—that 50% is disproportionate in Glasgow compared with the rest of the UK. The Department are saying that that is because we have more Jobcentres than anywhere else, but clearly we are refuting that. Basically we think we still need the amount of Jobcentres that we currently have.

Anna Soubry

Mr Pope, are you a representative across the whole of Scotland? Do you represent all of Scotland, not just Glasgow?

Ian Pope

I am the branch secretary for Glasgow. I am also a member of the PCS National Executive Committee and the DWP Group Executive Committee.

Anna Soubry

Excellent. Can you tell me, how many Jobcentres there are in Aberdeen?

Ian Pope

How many in Aberdeen? I know that Greyfriars has just been announced for closure last week. Ebury House is the one that will remain, so I think it is now one.

Anna Soubry

So they have one in Aberdeen, right. How many do they have in Edinburgh?

Ian Pope

Again, in Edinburgh, the central one was announced for closure last week.

Anna Soubry

So they do not have any?

Ian Pope

No, there are Jobcentres in Edinburgh, but—

Anna Soubry

Yes, but how many do they have? I want to establish how many Jobcentres there are in comparable cities. Now, of course the population of Aberdeen would be less than the 600,000 in Glasgow—we would agree on that—but I want to establish how many Jobcentres there are in Aberdeen. I think there is one in Aberdeen, so there is how many in Edinburgh?

Ian Pope

Off the top of my head, about three.

Anna Soubry

Three? Because, you see, I come from the city of Nottingham, which has a population of 300,000 and we have one Jobcentre. What has historically happened in Glasgow that means that you have so many Jobcentres? Because you have 16 with a proposal to close eight. Even if you have eight and you compare it with a city like Nottingham, if we do it on the population, Nottingham would have two, so that means that you would still have four times as many as Nottingham. What has been going on then? What is the history of it?

Ian Pope

I would say that up until about 10 years ago, we had about 18 Jobcentres in Glasgow. One dealt with exclusively the single homeless and that closed. I think that historically Glasgow has had higher levels of unemployment and social deprivation going back many, many years, going back decades. Historically that is why, with the pockets of Glasgow, Castlemilk, Easterhouse—I know Drumchapel is not closed, but that is another area of the city that has suffered over the years—so when you look around the whole city, there is a large number of Jobcentres, but there has been a necessity for them. That is why.

Anna Soubry

Quite. So in the past, with high unemployment, pockets of deprivation and poverty, Jobcentres are important. Now the city has an unemployment rate of 8%, which is exactly the same as Nottingham, so why shouldn’t you proportionately have as many Jobcentres as a city such as Nottingham?

Ian Pope

That is a good question, but clearly the issues in Glasgow, whether they are the same issues in Nottingham. It is a bigger city, I would imagine, Glasgow.

Anna Soubry

I think it is twice the population.

Ian Pope

It is a large city. You look at, for example, the Castlemilk Jobcentre. They are going to move to Newlands and it is outwith the ministerial criteria. There is no proposal to retain 50% as per the ministerial criteria—50% of the work in that location—but it is also the effect it has on claimants having to travel nearly four miles at £4.50 return on the bus. Now, that £4.50 to a benefit claimant is a lot of money.

Anna Soubry

It is a lot of money.

Ian Pope

It is the difference between money and a kid’s mouth. These are the reasons why we feel that when you look at the areas that are targeted, you see that they are areas of high deprivation and of child poverty, and hence the reason why we think that this service should still be retained.

Anna Soubry

I understand that, but in a city like Nottingham, the Jobcentre is right between the bus station and the train station, which obviously helps with access; it still costs money. But even if Nottingham had as many—a population of 600,000 in Glasgow, Nottingham 300,000—even if we had two in Nottingham, you would still be having eight. I want to know why Glasgow should have more proportionately than a city like Nottingham. It is only because I know Nottingham, because I am a Nottingham MP. Why do you need more in Glasgow?

Ian Pope

I can understand the point you are making, but I think what I would throw back is that these Jobcentres are in particular areas. Castlemilk, for years there has been massive unemployment; Easterhouse, Maryhill, Bridgeton, all these areas. It was the requirement because of the footfall: the number of people that were going into and using the Jobcentres. There was a requirement for Jobcentres in these areas. Now, Glasgow would appear to be unique in that, but we would still make the case that these Jobcentres are still required today.

Margaret Ferrier

To add to that, I think the population of Glasgow is much more than Nottingham. I think it is 318,900 for Nottingham at the last census, so I think Glasgow, if you take the suburbs as well, and I am sure Mr McDonald would like to come in and speak about the Castlemilk Jobcentre in particular and how far away it is from the Jobcentres that they are suggesting that these people travel to.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, if I could just respond to some of that. Glasgow is just not Nottingham. I don’t see a comparison. I accept your point about the 8% unemployment rate being the same, but if we take, for example, Ms Soubry, in my constituency the close of the Castlemilk Jobcentre, Castlemilk was once bigger than the Chairman’s constituency and it is a borough in my constituency. It was the largest housing estate in Europe at one point. Now, Castlemilk is on the periphery, it is on the south-east periphery of the city of Glasgow. The suggestion is that people from Castlemilk will now go to the Newlands Jobcentre. They call it the Newlands Jobcentre; it is actually Pollokshaws, which is even further away than Newlands. That would be an eight-mile round trip. The way that this was worked out, and I am sure this will be in the briefing papers provided to you, the way the Department worked this out was by using Google Maps. Now, Google Maps, in my view, is fine to use if I visit Nottingham and don’t know where I am going. It is not really what I would have expected of a governmental Department. There has been no transport survey carried out, no equality impact assessment carried out prior to the consultation, which I would have thought should have been done to help inform respondents to the consultation, as opposed to publishing it afterwards. Also, we have digital exclusion rates that are quite big in Glasgow. I know, for example, in Glasgow East, digital exclusion is about 35%. In Castlemilk, in my constituency, it is—

Anna Soubry

So, just so we know, that is people who don’t have access at home to the internet? Is it 35% of homes?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, and in Castlemilk, which I have just mentioned, it is roughly the same. I get that moving people online, where possible, is a good thing. I understand all of that. If the Department had come to us and had said, “This is an issue here. We do need to have a conversation about how we reform the service, how we deliver the service to Glaswegians”, that would have been fine. We could have had that conversation with an open mind, but that is not what has happened. These issues, like digital exclusion, like how people physically move around the city to access the service, you cannot learn that from Google Maps. Nobody from the Department has bothered to go on a bus and work out how this happened. If this was a school closure—

Anna Soubry

But if they did do that, the point I am trying to get to—and I am sure it is not lost on anyone—is that even in the city of Nottingham, there are two further Jobcentres. One is in my constituency, so it serves people on that side of the city, and then there is another one in West Bridgford, which serves people on the southern side. Those three Jobcentres, one right in the heart, then two in other areas, and then there is another one in Derbyshire. I won’t bore you, but what I am trying to get to is, for an incredibly large population, because now we are talking about at least 500,000, those three Jobcentres, and if you put in the Derbyshire one, really do work. I just want to know why Glasgow cannot have the same proportion of Jobcentres to people. What is there about the geography? Is it that your buses are useless, not as good? Because there is no logic to Glasgow having a higher proportion than it seems any other city in the whole country.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I would disagree with that, I have to say. We could have a conversation about buses and Castlemilk and be here all day, believe me, but I think when you take the combination of the geography, like the Castlemilk Jobcentre, where you take the combination of digital exclusion, the historical poverty rates over the years in Glasgow that are an issue, I think that bringing this kind of change, this big cut in half to the service that is being provided, is just unfair on Glasgow. Now, I don’t accept comparisons with Nottingham. I just don’t.

Anna Soubry

We can go to any city in the country. You have a higher percentage than any other—

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Take Manchester, for example.

Anna Soubry

All right, tell me how many you have in Manchester.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Manchester has about 14 Jobcentres, I think. I would say that is more comparable to Glasgow than Nottingham is.

Chair

I think we will move on. That has been helpful. One of the reasons that we are reaching a decision about this is that one of the drivers there seems to be about the expiry of the main estates contract. Is that a central feature about how we are now at this stage and why there is now a review of all this? How does that impact? Should services be predicated on the fact that a contract is up for renewal and the estate therefore has to be looked at once again?

Ian Pope

I think what has happened is the Department have taken the opportunity at this stage, because the contract expires next year, to do this. That is the rationale behind it, but you can’t play games with people’s lives depending on contracts. This is going to have a major effect on a vast number of people in Glasgow, and not only Glasgow, everywhere else, as I mentioned, there are going to be some hard effects but certainly at any time we would be arguing for these Jobcentres to remain open. The Department think it is the appropriate time to do it and we would say there is no appropriate time to close half the Jobcentres in Glasgow.

Chair

Lastly, we understand that as well as the Jobcentres there are 27 back offices that are up for closure. Could you just give us a flavour about what these offices do and the types of service they provide to local communities?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

One of the offices that has been announced for closure is in Corunna House in Glasgow. That is the contact centre. They deal with the telephony, basically claims for ESA, Social Fund inquiries and things like that. It is back-office functions dealing with telephony. There are some Child Maintenance Group sites that are affected as well, processing sites for benefits, so that is the kind of work that is done in the back-office functions, but my office will be moving to another office in Glasgow.

Chair

There are also plans to co-locate Jobcentres with wider community services. How would this work in practice?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Co-location again would depend on the staff. This is one of the issues that our members are raising. They are more concerned about the benefit claimants and how it affects them, but they are worried about the staffing levels in the DWP. We have lost 30,000 in the DWP since 2010 and clearly we have a staffing campaign and a claim in to get staff back in—20,000 I think it is. It would really depend on the amount of staff that are left to be in the co-location.

Anna Soubry

We may need to get this verified, but a Google search says there are three Jobcentres in Manchester with a population of 2.5 million and an unemployment rate of 5%.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

You are talking about Manchester city. I am talking about the metropolitan area.

Anna Soubry

I have to tell you that includes the metropolitan area of Manchester, because like Nottingham they have one right in the centre, then two out beyond the suburbs to scoop up better for buses and so on; still three.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I will double-check that, Chair, but that is the information I have from the Department.

Chair

Okay. What we will do to satisfy these concerns is we will get a picture of just how many Jobcentres serve metropolitan areas across the UK. I am sure that would help Ms Soubry and her concerns.

Deidre Brock

I had better declare on the record that I have a Jobcentre closing in my constituency as well. Mr McDonald, you will have been contacted, I am sure, by constituents about this issue. Can you share with us some of their views on the proposed closure?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, as well as lots of contact, lots of constituents signing petitions, lots of constituents responding to the online consultation, I had two well-attended public meetings, at which Ian sat beside me, like we are right now, in Castlemilk and in Langside, where there is the other Jobcentre in my constituency that the Department wishes to close. I think that for those who have been in the system for a while, those who have been attending Jobcentres for a while, what they see is a climate of constantly being harassed, benefit sanctions, being made to feel like a nuisance by the system sometimes. What they now feel is it is just another hardship to them. I mentioned, for example, that round trip in Castlemilk, which will go to eight miles—an eight-mile round trip they will have to do if it changes. Some folk have just said to me, “I can’t go eight miles”. Their cash is already stretched. Some people have said in the past, “We expect people to travel further if they get a job”. The difference with that is you have ownership over the decision. You have chosen to take a job eight miles away or more than eight miles away. This is going to be a decision that is going to be imposed on them. Pollokshaws is not a neighbouring community to Castlemilk, as the Department continues to describe it. They just feel it is one thing after another, frankly, and they are pretty peeved off with it. Now, in the case of Langside, it is very different from Castlemilk, where unemployment isn’t as large. Having said that, it is the second most densely populated council ward in Scotland and the kind of work lots of people there are in is kind of part-time work—often unsecure, for example, maybe hotels, bars, call centres—and they are on short-term private rented leases as well. The Jobcentre is also directly across the road from a college campus. I can’t think of a better place to have a Jobcentre.

Deidre Brock

I am guessing therefore that with all these public meetings and consultation and so on that have been taking place and the petitions, that you have shared this with the DWP. What has their reaction been so far?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

They stick to the line that it is only a consultation at this stage. It is very difficult to get anything out of them. What I think would help my frustration and the frustration of unions, other Members and also those who are using the service, would be if we had an idea of a timeline: when can we expect a decision, what would we expect a closure programme to physically look like in time? None of that has been forthcoming.

Deidre Brock

You think uncertainty is adding to people’s concerns?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, I do, because it just seems like a decision that came like a bolt out of the blue, particularly for us, who had to read about it in the press. I would have to say it has not been handled very well at all.

Ian Murray

I wonder if Mr McDonald could just run through for us how you would get to Newlands Jobcentre from a Castlemilk primary school without having to walk four miles and you don’t drive.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Sure. Entirely by bus. For example, if I take a primary school in the middle of Castlemilk, Castleton Primary School, you are looking at a walk down to where the Jobcentre is at the minute to get a bus. That bus will take you down to Langside and there you would have to change bus to go through Langside to get to Shawlands, where you would get off the bus and walk to Pollokshaws Jobcentre. In total, you are probably looking at three-quarters of an hour and that is if all your buses turned up and you are getting off one and on the other.

Ian Murray

What would the cost of that round trip be?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

You can get a day ticket for that, which is about £4.50. If you were to get taxis, which some people will have to, you are probably looking at about £15 there and £15 back.

Anna Soubry

Chair, can I ask a question? Obviously I can’t remember the geography of Glasgow very well. From where you describe, how long would it take to get to the city centre?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

It would probably take—

Anna Soubry

By bus.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

It can take the best part of an hour to get to the city centre of Glasgow. It is on the periphery of the south-east.

Anna Soubry

So you are an hour from the city centre. Is it easier to get into the city centre than this convoluted route all the way around?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, one bus.

Anna Soubry

One bus into the city here.

Chair

I have a map here and there is just an array of Jobcentres around the Glasgow metropolitan area. There doesn’t seem to be a Jobcentre in the city centre.

Ian Pope

They closed it down.

Chair

Is this a historic feature of the development of Jobcentres, that they served individual communities around the whole metropolitan area of Glasgow? Is this possibly one of the reasons why there is a difficulty getting from Jobcentre A, which has been closed, to Jobcentre B?

Ian Pope

There was a Jobcentre with the Benefit Agency at the time in Pitt Street in Glasgow. They closed that and they moved down to Argyle Street and then they closed that about seven, eight years ago. We made the case that I think that Glasgow was the only big inner city without a Jobcentre in the city centre.

Chair

My city is neither as big as your city, Mr McDonald, or Ms Soubry’s. In Perth, we only have 52,000 people, but my Jobcentre is on the high street of Perth, which would be equally accessible to anybody from Perth. It just seems a strange feature that in closing these Jobcentres there isn’t an obvious point where people can go and they are expected to go to other communities in order to access these services. But I know Ms Ferrier has a question.

Margaret Ferrier

Thank you, Chair. I am going to ask Mr McDonald this question. Are you aware of any equality impact assessments that were carried out before these announcements?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

There haven’t been any.

Margaret Ferrier

None at all? Because I am thinking about the kind of detrimental impact that it will have on, say, disabled people or those with mental health conditions or single parents with very young children with the timing factor around it. Are you aware of any—

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

The Department have said they have no intention to carry it out until the consultation has been completed. That has now ended on 31 January. Presumably they are now embarking on that impact assessment as we speak, but they haven’t confirmed that.

Margaret Ferrier

Is that not a bit of putting the cart before the horse?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes. I would have thought that you would publish that, which would then help those who wished to respond to the consultation to respond to the consultation. It would help inform your response. But the Department seems to take a different view.

Mr Christopher Chope

You are—I think probably quite fairly—critical of the process, but looking at the substance of it, I think we have established that there are a lot more Jobcentres in Glasgow than there are in equivalent cities in the United Kingdom and there still will be a large number more in Glasgow proportionately even after these closures. I just say, Chairman, that in my constituency some years ago, our only Jobcentre closed and that people on what is regarded as the most deprived housing estate in Dorset have to travel a lot more than an eight-mile round trip in order to access the Jobcentre in Bournemouth. We are not talking about something that is new. This is a policy that has been evolving. But the Chairman asked about the question of co-location, which is at the core of the Smith Agreement. We have had a rather negative response from Mr Pope, as though he did not really buy into co-location at all, but my understanding is that both the UK Government and the Scottish Government have bought into co-location. I wondered if we could hear a bit more about what you expect that to lead to in terms of Jobcentre provision in Glasgow.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

We would love to have a conversation about co-location. For example—I keep coming back to Castlemilk Jobcentre, if you will forgive me, Chair—it is part of a shopping centre and a few doors down from there is the Citizens Advice Bureau. Kind of around the corner, maybe an eight-minute walk from there, is the Law and Money Advice Centre. There are also a few housing associations quite nearby. If we could have a discussion about, “Okay, we are all offering a similar service in relation to job-finding and welfare and employment support and all the rest of it. How can we better pull that together in the community?” that would be a conversation that would be worth having. I think housing associations would like to have that conversation, councillors would like to have that conversation. I am not against that, but that is not the conversation that we have been offered. What we have been offered is a straight up closure and shifting it to the opposite end of the constituency.

Ian Pope

Can I come in, just for clarification? PCS and I are not against co-location. I was asked by the Chair what effect that might have and the point I made was it had to be staffed properly. If there was to be co-location, clearly under the ministerial criteria there should be a footprint left in the existing area. That could be co-location and that is certainly something we would support.

Mr Christopher Chope

So the conversation you say you haven’t yet been invited to have by the UK Government, is that a conversation that has been initiated by the Scottish Government?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I am so glad you asked that, because just as I have had to find out in the press, so did the Scottish Government. That is contrary to the Smith Agreement that you referred to. I am sure members of the Committee will have copies of correspondence from the Scottish Government’s Employment Minister and they are very keen to try to have that conversation. I think there has been a bit of progress, but I would not like to speculate on that too much. However, I think the high-handed way that they have approached it frankly has just got everyone’s back up and I think that it has led to an atmosphere of mistrust.

Mr Christopher Chope

But surely the obligation under the Smith Agreement to investigate co-location predates this announcement. What I really wanted to find out was what was happening after that part of the Smith Agreement was brought into effect. What efforts did the Scottish Government make to try to work with the UK Government to establish co-location so that it could deal with these sorts of issues?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

The agencies of the Scottish Government work closely, as you would expect, with the agencies of the United Kingdom Government. The problem is that the Scottish Government did not have any prior knowledge that this announcement was taking place, so you cannot have a conversation about something that they have not told them about.

Mr Christopher Chope

But you can have a conversation about co-location in general and the desirability of it.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I don’t work for the Scottish Government. I can only say to you that I assume the agencies, or I know the agencies of the Scottish Government, work with, for example, the Department for Work and Pensions, but if you want to get into the intricacies of that and what discussions they have physically had on co-locations, I am afraid I am not your guy.

Chair

On that, we are doing a piece of joint work with a Scottish Parliament Committee, the Social Security Committee. This is an issue that I think we will want to examine and explore and have a conversation with them about. At this moment I think the debate has started in the Scottish Parliament on this very issue too and I think the concerns about lack of consultation will feature quite highly. I know Mr Murray has to leave for a few minutes and he has a question.

Ian Murray

I want to ask Mr Pope, and you might find this quite difficult to answer because your members are obviously involved in the service, but are your members giving you a concern about the potential rise in sanctions on clients because of this difficulty in being able to access Jobcentres? It seems to me, looking at the map and the discussion we have had already, that Glasgow is built on an arterial model, where buses go in and out of the city centre, but your claimants are being asked to do a circular journey. Are there concerns about the increases in sanctions and what are PCS able to do, through your members who are on the ground, at the coalface in Jobcentres, to make the case to Ministers and to senior staff that they are going to find that quite a difficult process?

Ian Pope

That is part of it. We have responded to DWP in the consultation and we have highlighted that. There is no doubt—and Stewart gave the Castlemilk example—and clearly, in our opinion and the opinion of the members who work in Castlemilk, this will increase the likelihood of people being late for appointments at the new Jobcentre, because not everyone lives next to the Jobcentre. People live out away from the Jobcentres. When they have done the calculation on Google Maps, it is from Jobcentre to Jobcentre. There will be that likelihood for this. Clearly the vast majority of our members oppose benefit sanctions, because they are, as you say, on the shop floor—they are at the front representing the Department, they are the ones that get the criticism, they are the ones that are facing the backlash. It is not Government Ministers, it is not a Department; it is our members. What we would want is clearly a benefit system that treats people with dignity and respect and offers assistance instead of attacking them. That is all part of what our members are concerned about. When we held members’ meetings on all eight of the sites, the first question at every meeting was, “What about the claimants?” Not one of them said, “What about me? Am I going to get a car park space at this new office?” Everyone was talking about the claimants. That was a real concern. It is a credit to them, because they have built up years of experience in working with the communities and they don’t want to lose that. That is their concern, their roles and all that will go, because I think we know once a Jobcentre closes, it will never reopen again. They know that as well, so we are fighting as hard as we can to retain the vital services.

Ian Murray

I think your members and the staff in Jobcentres have done a remarkable job, given the circumstances of the last few years. They deserve a great deal of credit, but also the support, and I hope the DWP give the staff the support they require for these changes, if they go through.

Chris Law

It is clear from the discussion so far that at just about every single level there has been a lack of consultation and had that been done in the first place, we might not be sitting here today. I am going to return to the point raised by my colleague, Christopher Chope, with regard to the Smith Commission, because we are constantly told by the UK Government that Scotland will be an equal partner in discussions. In fact, he is quite right to raise the Smith Commission report. Paragraph 58 says, and I quote, “The UK and Scottish Government will identify ways to further link services through methods such as co-location wherever possible and establish more formal mechanisms to govern the Jobcentre Plus network in Scotland”. Why do you think DWP did not consult the Scottish Government and what do you think it is hiding from?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I think they knew there would be enormous opposition to it. I have to say, I don’t think that is a reason to do what they have done. You have the Minister coming after me. I think your question would probably be better put to him, but as you say, it outlines there are formal ways to work together to establish co-location. It does not strike me that either side would have expected for one to tell the other—in fact, they did not even tell the other; they had to also hear about it in the press and then ask questions later. You would expect consultations between the two Governments to have been happening prior to any announcement, but it is clear that did not happen.

Ian Pope

That is right. I reiterate what I said earlier about the consultation. If the Department had consulted us, the union, at an earlier stage to say, “Here are the eight sites we think in Glasgow”, we could have sat down with them, had that conversation and raised all the concerns that we have raised in our response to the consultation and we are raising here today. It may have alleviated some of the pressures and we could maybe have had a review of it at an early stage, but instead the Department went full sail into announcing eight closures in Glasgow with very little consultation. We were only given prior notice of it 48 hours before, so we had no opportunity to raise anything at any meetings to say, “Well, this isn’t a good idea. What about Castlemilk? Here are the issues”. But as Stewart says, he read about it in the papers and most of our members read about it in the papers as well.

Chris Law

Just one additional question, if you don’t mind. Ian, I know you are from the PCS and the PCS have also raised concerns about HMRC closures. Does this not feel very similar in the way that it has been approached and for the reasons it has been done?

Ian Pope

Yes. I think when you are looking at Scotland, for many, many years it has been at the forefront of closures, political experiments and everything else. HMRC in Scotland went down to two hubs: Glasgow and Edinburgh. For example, in East Kilbride, in which it is one of the biggest employers in the town, a massive effect, Bathgate, Livingston and further north. This is now our HMRC moment. We are now facing office closures as well and the more closures there are, it is going to be harder to get people redeployed, our members redeployed and keeping their jobs. We had one instance in Scotland with the announcement the other week in Cumnock, where 89 staff could be facing redundancy, because there are no redeployment opportunities in Ayrshire for them.

Anna Soubry

Can I ask you this, Mr Pope? On behalf of your members—obviously we all pay tribute to the work they do in difficult circumstances and recognise it is always difficult when you don’t know whether you are going to have a job, it is really tough—are you, as a union that represents its workers, completely set against any closures of any Jobcentre in Glasgow or do you accept the need for some closures?

Ian Pope

As a union we look at any proposal. There were a number before the Glasgow one where we recognised that there was no opposition to it because it was maybe a small office that had not been used for some time or they were being deployed to an office maybe 100 yards down the road. So we did not launch campaigns of opposition.

Anna Soubry

So you have an open mind?

Ian Pope

Yes. But in Glasgow, after looking at the proposal, we felt that we were not in that position.

Anna Soubry

No. Am I right that it is because it is illogical? Is that it? I know there are the other things, but it is not logical, because if I am right, it seems to be that what has happened is that somebody has sat down—and it may well be that Mr McDonald is right—with Google Maps and gone, “Oh well, that looks all right. We will take this one out, take that”, and so on and so forth, as opposed to saying, “Right, what can we do to get the very best service for as many folk as possible in this city?” That might mean you close them all down—don’t get too disheartened when I say that—and effectively start again and say, “Right, let us have one in the city centre, let us have one here”. I don’t know, would it help Ms Ferrier to have one maybe there in her constituency? But you see my point. It looks like what they have done, they have not taken that radical approach and said, “How do we get a system that delivers value for the taxpayer and delivers value for the people that use those centres and is logical?” Because I must confess, some of this doesn’t look even remotely logical if you have to catch a bus that takes for blooming ever. Would you be willing to do that, Mr McDonald?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

We are in opposition to the plan as it stands. What we recognise is—and it has been mentioned by the Department—that some of these Jobcentres have lots and lots of free floor space, so you might have one floor on the ground level and one above that is not being used. Now, I accept you need to get value for the taxpayer—of course you do—as well as value for the user. I know I keep coming back to Castlemilk. In the case of Castlemilk Jobcentre, if this is about saving money—everyone has to save money, I accept—it is in a town shopping centre. I have written to the Department to say, “If you want to save money, we will have a discussion with you to offer you a lower rent to allow you to deliver the service and save money”. The Department has refused to even engage in those conversations.

Anna Soubry

Could they co-locate with somebody on your patch?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, they probably could.

Anna Soubry

You see, my Jobcentre is going in with my borough council, so that building, which has shrunk in terms of the amount of people in it and everything else, now has a police station, it has the fantastic Citizens Advice Bureau. What a whole load of sense it makes to have obviously the Jobcentre in there as well. You are not ruling that out, that sort of free thinking?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Absolutely not.

Anna Soubry

There we go; we can sort this out.

Chair

We don’t have a lot of time left and I want to discuss some of the employment issues with Mr Pope, but I know Ms Ferrier has a supplementary.

Margaret Ferrier

I just wanted to clarify something. We were talking about Manchester earlier and I have had a look. I have just researched us. Manchester: Atherton, Rusholme, West Didsbury, Alexander Park, Cheetham Hill, Middleton, Newton Heath, Openshaw and Longsight. It is certainly a lot more than three. I don’t know whether you have been looking at Google Maps. I think we all agree that this is a perfect example, Mr Pope and Mr McDonald, that Google Maps maybe should not form part of the process in looking at these proposals.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I should just say on the Google Maps point, Ms Ferrier was at the meeting where Denise Horsfall was there, whose title escapes me—Director for Scotland—and I asked her as a joke, “Did you just Google Map this?” and she said, “Yes, that is what we used to calculate it”, and other MPs were at that meeting.

Anna Soubry

But there is only one in Nottingham.

Chair

We will try to get a proper assessment of Jobcentres right across metropolitan areas of the UK, so we will know exactly how we are comparing apples with pears or bananas, oranges or whatever. Just lastly, Mr Pope, I think I saw in the December announcement that there were to be no compulsory redundancies. I don’t know if that is still the case now that there is the UK-wide consultation. Could you update us about where we are with compulsory redundancies?

Ian Pope

In Glasgow, the Department has said there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of this announcement and also the new announcements last week. There is a new office in Glasgow and staff will move into this new office in Glasgow by next year. That still stands as far as I know. There will be no need for any redundancies. The only one in Scotland is in Cumnock, as I mentioned.

Chair

Just about the relocation, I know we did not get an opportunity to explore with you some of the further threatened Jobcentres. I know there is one in the Western Isles, for example. Is there any support that staff will have in terms of relocation or are there concerns that have come to you as a union head about relocation packages?

Ian Pope

Of course, we support our members through all of this. There may come a time, as I said earlier, with the HMRC point and the possibilities of redeployment reducing. We will support our members through this process, but I think in the Western Isles one of the offices there has not been used for years. I think it is a house, somebody was telling me, and so it might not be an issue. Up in Glasgow it is fine, but in areas like Cumnock and Ayrshire, there may be problems.

Chair

Lastly, what happens next? They close the consultation in February, is that right, the end of February?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

End of January it closed: 31 January.

Chair

End of January, and then what do you anticipate will be following that at the end of the consultation?

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

We have not had any formal dates of when to expect more announcements. From doing my own digging, I think we are expecting an announcement on the decision sometime late February, early March, but I do not know whether they will publish consultation responses first. I do not know if they will publish the equality impact assessment at any point and, if so, when. I would appreciate it if you could get that from the Minister when he appears before you this afternoon.

Chair

We will see what we can do is all that I can say to you. Thank you both ever so much for attending this one-off session. If there is anything else that you feel that we have missed or you could add to this Committee’s knowledge about what is going on, that would be very helpful. We may use your evidence in our Sustainable Employment inquiry, if that is all right with both of you.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Yes, certainly. Examination of witnesses

Witnesses

Frank Mosson, Reverend Dr Martin Johnstone and Carla McCormack.

Chair

Thank you. Are we all organised and sorted? Again, we will forego any initial statements because of the lack of time, but just for the record could you say who you are and what organisation you represent?

Frank Mosson

My name is Frank Mosson. I am the manager of Bridgeton Citizens Advice Bureau, which is located in the East End of Glasgow.

Carla McCormack

I am Carla McCormack. I am the policy and parliamentary officer at the Poverty Alliance.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

I am Martin Johnstone and I am secretary of the Church of Scotland Church and Society Council.

Chair

I am grateful. Thank you ever so much for attending this afternoon’s session at reasonably short notice. Can we start with a general question? How does the closure programme impact on the services that you provide and what are your major concerns about what is proposed? We will start with you, Reverend Johnstone.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

Thank you. In a way, I would want to begin by saying that we are not primarily concerned with our members. We are concerned with the people across Scotland in every part of Scotland that we are seeking to serve. The Church of Scotland has had a very deliberate focus over the last 20 years of prioritising resources and energy and commitment to our poorest communities and our poorest places. When we look at the planned Jobcentre closures, we see that those match some of the very, very poorest communities in Scotland, and that is one of the reasons why we feel that this to date is just wrong.

Carla McCormack

The Poverty Alliance is Scotland’s national anti-poverty network so, like Martin, we are largely concerned with the impact this will have on the poorest people in Scotland. As Martin has highlighted already, by choosing to close the Jobcentres that are mentioned in the consultation, they are generally in areas with high levels of deprivation. We believe that choosing to close those Jobcentres is, therefore, choosing to have a negative impact on people experiencing poverty.

Frank Mosson

I would like to echo that. The Citizens Advice Bureau service in Glasgow last year dealt with over 22,500 benefit issues. Obviously, the area in which we are located is an area of multiple deprivation and one of the areas that my bureau covers has a child poverty rate of 50%. We are obviously concerned that this relocation of services is going to have a very negative impact on the most deprived members of our community.

Chair

Could you help us with what sort of relationship you do have with these Jobcentres? Are you in regular contact? Do you help to provide some of the services that may be ongoing from these Jobcentres?

Frank Mosson

Certainly, with the Jobcentres, what has happened is they removed the telephone access to the local Jobcentres and it became a means by which you had to contact centrally the Jobcentre. That created a barrier between helping your clients and basically the DWP staff understanding exactly what was going on with your client on a local basis. It was always really good, if you have a vulnerable client with maybe mental health issues or anxiety issues, to be able to go round to the Jobcentre where the bureau is located. Bridgeton bureau is only about five minutes along the road. That is something that is going to be missed with our service.

Chair

Ms McCormack, is there any relationship that you have with the local Jobcentres?

Carla McCormack

Our relationship is primarily with claimants, but we also have Poverty Alliance organisational members who work closely with Jobcentres. We were in Castlemilk last week, which Mr McDonald also referenced quite a lot prior to this. We met the Law Centre there, and one of the things they were very keen to highlight is the fact that most of the people who come to seek legal advice in the Law Centre come directly from the Jobcentre. By closing the Jobcentre, there is a potential to break that link between advice and Jobcentre appointments.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

I am proud that the church operates an open door and certainly one of the things that the church has been deeply involved with over the last number of years, sadly, has been the rise of foodbanks. Day in, day out, we see people turning up in desperate need, and when we speak to those people about the planned closures, we see people in tears knowing that they are almost at the end of their tether and that this may be a tipping point for them.

Chair

I am grateful. Lastly from me, the Government have stated their intention is to co-locate 50 Jobcentres with local authorities or other community services. Have any of you been approached at all about being a possible co-location?

Frank Mosson

No.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

No.

Chair

I am looking at the shaking of heads, which indicates no, that has not been the case. Thank you for that.

Margaret Ferrier

I am going to ask a supplementary first. In my own constituency a local Church of Scotland minister, the Reverend Neil Glover of Flemington-Hallside Church, has keenly backed the campaign to stop the closure of Cambuslang Jobcentre, calling it a moral issue. Are ministers doing likewise in other areas and, if so, have they raised any particular local concerns?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

One of the things that the Church of Scotland does that I mentioned earlier is this particular commitment to the poorest 65 neighbourhoods across the country, the poorest neighbourhoods in Scotland. That network of churches and ministers has certainly been particularly focused on trying to stop those closures, whether or not they are in Glasgow. Across Scotland, we have had that level of concern and I think Neil is absolutely right: this is fundamentally a moral issue.

Anna Soubry

What? How on earth is it a moral issue? I am so sorry, I absolutely recognise the great work you do, but on what possible basis is this a moral issue? Sorry, Ms Ferrier, very rude of me to interrupt, but what do you mean that it is a moral issue?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

Okay. If people end up being destitute—

Anna Soubry

Destitute?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

Yes, as a result—for example, I have a particular person who has spoken to me about her concern that if she has to go to a local Jobcentre, it means that it will take her an hour to get there and an hour to get back. She will have to drop off her three year-old at nursery before she goes. She will need to get to the Jobcentre. If she misses one bus she could be 35 or 40 minutes before the next one comes along. It will then take her an hour to get there, be at the Jobcentre, and then back. She will miss her child. That level of anxiety, it seems to me, is a moral issue in our society.

Anna Soubry

Because of the network that you have as a church, have you looked at how it works in other cities? Other cities do not have the number of Jobcentres that you have in Glasgow, so how does it work in those cities in a way that it cannot work in Glasgow?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

With respect, we have gone over quite a lot of that information. I think that some of the problems that are there are around geography. Some of the problems that are there are that because this has been suggested without any prior consultation, we might relocate people from one place to another place without understanding the bus routes or the arterial movements around the city.

Anna Soubry

I do not think there is any debate about that, but going back to your woman, how often does she have to go to the Jobcentre?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

She probably has to go there once a fortnight.

Chair

Can you just clarify? Is it once a fortnight? Is that what people are required to do, to turn up for? If you are on jobseeker’s allowance, is that the case?

Frank Mosson

It can vary. DWP has the power to vary. Usually, it is set at once a fortnight. However, it can be weekly and there have been examples where it has been daily.

Anna Soubry

We need to know because when you use an example of somebody, other Members of Parliament may well say, “My constituents have an hour’s bus journey to go and sign on. If they can do it, why can’t this woman do it?” Are we sure that she is having to go and do we know how often she has to go? Does she have her childcare sorted out and so on and so forth? Do you see my point? Rather than saying this woman will be destitute, which is a very, very strong word, we need to be sure that we know exactly her situation before we then judge, would you not agree, that she is going to be destitute?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

We absolutely do and I know the woman.

Anna Soubry

You think she will be destitute if her Jobcentre closes?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

I think she has a real fear and anxiety about that level of destitution.

Chair

We will leave it there. We are trying to determine the geographical spread of Jobcentres in metropolitan areas and we will make sure that we get the facts and access to that information. Ms Ferrier has another supplementary.

Margaret Ferrier

It is just the destitute question. Obviously, if transport does not run on time, the woman turns up late, then there is a high possibility, is there not, of increased sanctions? That is what will lead to destitution, but we will leave it at that and I will come on to my next question. Apart from dealing with people’s benefit claims, what other services do Jobcentres provide to people? Is that the best way of providing them or could the likes of the Citizens Advice Bureau do what they do?

Frank Mosson

I think there is a misconception that it is only claimants that utilise Jobcentres. Jobcentres also deal with people who have disabilities, who are on ESA and the work-related group, and who are attending Work programme interviews and things like that. In addition, Jobcentres also receive documentation and do verification of documentation such as a fit note or sick lines. For someone who is having to provide a sick line to then have an additional journey, and my bureau’s concern is 2.7 miles from Bridgeton to Shettleston, that is 5.4 miles someone is having to go to provide a fit note into a local Jobcentre, which is quite a journey. In regard to the services the bureau provides, obviously we deal with an awful lot. Apart from benefits, there is debt, housing and so on. Could we host any other? I really do not know. An issue is in regard to our principles and how we look at working with partners. One of the things we have to consider is our independence and how it can be perceived if we are working too closely, in a sense. That independence could be threatened.

Margaret Ferrier

Ms McCormack, do you have any comments?

Carla McCormack

We do not provide a service as such. We are a membership organisation, but one of the things a lot of our members have raised, and to echo what Mr Mosson had said, would be that they would be concerned about co-locating Jobcentre services in somewhere that might compromise their neutrality, particularly with the ongoing sanctions regime. They do not want to feel like they are co-locating with an organisation that is sanctioning people and is leaving people without money to live on. That puts them in an awkward situation. The other thing as well on top of that is people need to speak with Jobcentre staff somewhere that is private and where they can do that without fear of being overheard. This is particularly true for ESA claimants. I think with all the Jobcentres in Glasgow targeted for closure—Mr Mosson will correct me on this if I am wrong—ESA claimants make up the majority of claimants in those Jobcentres. If you are going and you are having to discuss a health condition, you do not want to do that somewhere where you might be overheard or if you know the person who works in the library or community centre.

Margaret Ferrier

Is there not a security issue as well? If someone is going in at the moment, Jobcentre Plus normally have security on their premises for anyone that possibly kicks off in the Jobcentre and you have to deal with it. A library is not really the best place to relocate or co-locate.

Carla McCormack

Yes.

Chair

On that, we have received some concerns about some of the disability issues. Although no impact assessment has been done about the impact this is going to have on people who have disabilities and ensuring they can get to Jobcentres, I know the CAB in particular has been looking at some of these things. Is there anything you can help this Committee with about some of your concerns with that, if there are any?

Frank Mosson

Yes, certainly. The Citizens Advice Bureaux in Glasgow have been conducting surveys of claimants and people who use the Jobcentre, with some very interesting results, if you can bear with me while I find it among my papers. Some of the quotes are quite pertinent in regard to the distance, the mobility and general fear of sanctions. We have one client who said, “I would have to get two buses to Shettleston, which might mean that I was late to an appointment. I would be worried about sanctions”. Another states, “I cannot walk any distance so need to use public transport. If I had to go there, it would be expensive to pay for bus fares”. That was a client that was on ESA. There are other issues as well. We have a lone parent who talks about having to take their child there and the difficulty they have with walking with their daughter. They would find it difficult and expensive. One of the other things is the anxiety that is created by people even just using public transport if they have children, or trying to meet a deadline, and things like that. One of the things we also got from our survey was that the vast majority of people walked to the Jobcentre, not necessarily always through choice but because it was more affordable to use Shanks’s pony. The concern, as you heard earlier, is that the plan looks at Jobcentre-to-Jobcentre travel. Some of our clients are about two miles away from the Jobcentre. Clients are distant from the Jobcentre and one of the difficulties they then have is that there is an additional journey there, which is going to have an impact on them.

Chair

Are there any reassurances you have had from Government or from the DWP that people will be compensated for these further journeys? I am not sure you could help us about how, if there is going to be compensation, it is paid. Is it given when they arrive at the Jobcentre or does it go into the monthly benefit? How would that work out?

Frank Mosson

The DWP does have a jobseeker’s fare scheme, but you have to be registered for three months before you can access that. It does not have a large uptake, unfortunately. Having said that, for the vast majority of people with the scheme, it is £1 for a single journey—£1 on the bus for a single journey. If someone has to get two buses to the Jobcentre, that would be £2, and then back again would be another £2, so it is £4. An all-day ticket is £4.50. There is a small saving there of 50p. There is that scheme but, as I said, from our clients there has not been a great uptake.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

Certainly, from a meeting that we had with the Minister a couple of weeks ago—so you can maybe ask him more about this—we were informed about the possibility or about a scheme that, if people were travelling to a Jobcentre more than once a fortnight, there was an opportunity for that second fare to be compensated, but there was not for the first one. Obviously, £4.50, which is what it would be in the vast majority of cases, is a significant amount of money out of people’s budgets.

Margaret Ferrier

Were they getting that £4.50 back there and then or were they having to wait for it?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

I don’t know. You should ask the Minister.

Chair

I think we will. Thank you for that.

Anna Soubry

Reverend Johnstone, you were talking about the foodbanks. At the foodbanks, do you also have any computers?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

We do and a number of our churches also run job clubs and work on occasions very closely with local Jobcentres. We want to try to do that and at the moment we work effectively with a number of Jobcentres across the country, less effectively with others. We would want to be able to help, but we would want to also recognise what others have said about some of the real challenges of being very closely associated with the DWP, where the staff, I think as Mr Murray said earlier, are on the whole superb, but in actual fact the policy is something that the church would disagree with.

Anna Soubry

Going back to the use of computers, you help people to go online. Do you do some training for people on computers if they do not have them at home?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

We try to provide some of that support and that help.

Anna Soubry

Do you work with the local Jobcentres? I was not sure. I have a church with a foodbank and they have a big bank of computers, which they have begged, borrowed and stolen, and then they help people get online and help them with their job applications and so on. Do you do that in your churches?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

We do.

Anna Soubry

Excellent. Now can I ask about the fact that we know that obviously some people have to go physically into the office? I do not know who can help me with this. Can people tell us what the circumstances are in which a claimant would physically have to go into an office and, heaven forbid, engage with a real human being? What sorts of cases? Why would people need to do that? This is a very important point.

Frank Mosson

I think if you are looking at—

Anna Soubry

That was sarcastic, by the way, about engaging with human beings.

Frank Mosson

For instance, if someone has been claiming employment and support allowance and they have been taken off that and they are appealing it or they are going through the mandatory consideration, in the meantime they are required to attend the Jobcentre. They have to claim jobseeker’s allowance. Until such time as their appeal is lodged, an individual who may be quite ill is having to attend a Jobcentre as a job seeker.

Anna Soubry

They still have to go even if they are ill?

Frank Mosson

Yes.

Anna Soubry

Is that every fortnight?

Frank Mosson

That would be to the discretion of their work coach.

Anna Soubry

What about people who have disabilities and have somebody at the Jobcentre who is helping them either to get back into work or to get into work for the first time? Would you agree that often they physically want to go and talk face to face with somebody who is helping them to get a job?

Frank Mosson

Yes, absolutely. That is a point, but I think the difficulty is that if you have someone with disabilities who is seeing a disability adviser, I am not sure how much easier that is going to be for them if they are having to travel a longer distance and over more time.

Anna Soubry

I think it is the fact that they do have to go into the office. Not everybody can just do stuff online, even if they have access to it. We need to know the sorts of cases where people have to physically go into the office and, as I say, talk to somebody, have an appointment, whatever it may be. You are giving us examples of that?

Frank Mosson

Yes.

Anna Soubry

I do not like stereotypes, but would you agree with me that younger people—those under the age of 30 to 35—tend to be more au fait with doing pretty much everything online, but people who are over that age may not have such a willingness? Would you agree with me on that?

Frank Mosson

Without getting into stereotypes, I think there are issues for people using online in Glasgow, definitely. The Glasgow bureaux participated in a study in 2013: 950 people had a questionnaire and, of that, 70% of the benefit claimants said that they needed help online. They would need help to complete a form. When we did our survey at the four Jobcentres in the East End of Glasgow—that is Bridgeton, Shettleston, Parkhead and Easterhouse—we did a survey using our community information workers. That found 51% of the people we asked stated that they would need help completing a form online.

Anna Soubry

Did they say why?

Frank Mosson

There are a number of reasons. For instance, I think as you heard earlier, the digital pick-up in Glasgow, the pick-up for broadband, I believe an Ofcom survey found that only 40% of households had picked up on broadband in Glasgow. There are issues with digital by default in Glasgow. One of the other things that I think came from it is that if the Jobcentres move location, if they relocate further away, then there are resources that are going to be taken out of the local communities. IT resources and advisory resources are going to be relocated. The difficulty is that people would then have to access the libraries and things like that. The problem with the library service is that they are time constrained. You only have one hour to complete your business on a computer in the library. The difficulty is that most of—

Anna Soubry

That is very interesting.

Chair

That comment you made that there is 40% pick-up of broadband in Glasgow—

Frank Mosson

Yes, I got that from Ofcom.

Chair

One is assuming that that 40% are going to be among the most prosperous people in Glasgow.

Anna Soubry

I used to be a criminal barrister and I used to represent people. I did not prosecute very much. One of the things that always struck me was that a lot of people—it takes a long time to get them to admit it—cannot read and write.

Frank Mosson

Yes.

Anna Soubry

If you can only do it online, how do you do it online if you cannot read and write very well?

Chair

This concerns us greatly, given that one of the major drivers for this is the fact that most of this is now being processed online. What you are telling us is that the majority of people in Glasgow do not have access to that facility and there is a great deal of difficulty in ensuring that these claims are being processed.

Anna Soubry

Do you have any statistics among you of what you think the percentage could be of people who are claiming who cannot read and write, or cannot read and write very well?

Frank Mosson

I did try to obtain the literacy figures for Glasgow before I came here, but unfortunately I couldn’t.

Chair

It would help us if you could give that information to the Committee, if it is available in a form that we could use. That would be really helpful to try to get a sense of some of the difficulties we are trying to explore here in the innovations. That brings us to Chris Law.

Chris Law

I think Anna Soubry has asked most of the questions.

Anna Soubry

I am so sorry.

Chris Law

No, it is okay. One of the key points that the Government stated for closing these Jobcentres was increased online engagement, but from what you are saying this flies in the face of exactly what can be done. I heard earlier also that in Castlemilk 30% have no digital connection in their homes. Am I right in saying, just looking at your own survey for the CAB, surveyed service users say 80% will be inconvenienced or greatly inconvenienced by these closures and the impact from reduced access to digital services and support? Did you say your last report was in 2013? Is that correct?

Frank Mosson

There was one done in 2015 as well, which is the later one. It showed that there was some improvement but not a substantial improvement.

Chris Law

To be blunt, the DWP is out of touch with its service users, frankly, on this?

Frank Mosson

To be blunt, yes.

Chair

I think all of us as Members of Parliament are familiar with these issues where people are coming to our constituency surgeries needing assistance in order to make these claims. You heard me say I have one Jobcentre in Perth and we have a great relationship particularly with CAB where it is all interconnected and mutually supportive and helpful. I am presuming that these models apply across Glasgow, that you are pretty much connected with the Jobcentres and work together in order to try to help the clients.

Frank Mosson

Yes, obviously we are all trying to help the client. Just how connected that is in Glasgow I cannot really compare to Perth and what is happening in Perth.

Chair

Again, we have a foodbank in Perth and what we found on my recent visit was that most people who access the services from the foodbank were people who had been sanctioned. That was, again, as a result of not being able to turn up on time for appointments and so on. I do not know if that is what you found. I think you said it was mainly ESA.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

Yes, that is certainly our experience alongside other faults within the DWP benefit system. People perhaps not getting the benefit that they are entitled to, that not coming through, is another very major reason for us. For me, one of the other real challenges in this is that an awful lot of our conversation is talking about what is going on as if the number of people who will be visiting Jobcentres over the next period of time will inevitably be declining. In actual fact, as Universal Credit is rolled in, then DWP policy has that the number of people attending Jobcentres will increase or should increase over the next number of years. It seems to me that that then flies completely in the face of reducing something at a time when you are envisaging there will be significantly greater usage. We would anticipate from some very rough calculations that that may well mean another 20,000 people in Glasgow would have to access Jobcentres over the next number of years.

Chair

That is a very helpful point and I will bring the other guests in on this, because there are also economic forecasts as a result of leaving the European Union. I think Fraser of Allander, for example, is forecasting possibly losing tens of thousands of jobs and a major impact on all our communities when it comes to these things. Therefore, we have a situation with Universal Credit being one thing and the possibility of an economic downturn and more people being unemployed and these Jobcentres being closed. Have you done any work about possible future pressures that would be on the Jobcentres that would still exist?

Frank Mosson

I think the Reverend Doctor makes a good point there about Universal Credit rollout. We do know that when Universal Credit rolls out there will be increased footfall at the Jobcentres because people will be called in if they are underemployed or they are not satisfying the amount of hours. There is going to be an increase in Jobcentre footfall.

Carla McCormack

One of the other things in addition to increased in-work conditionality and increased conditionality for lone parents is you obviously mentioned as well what is going to happen with Brexit. I am not an economist, I do not know, but it does seem like a strange time now to decide to close these Jobcentres, particularly with new powers coming to the Scottish Government and disability benefits being devolved to Scottish level. We already know that there is quite a lot of confusion among the people we work with anyway about what is coming to the Scottish Government and what will remain reserved. If you are on a benefit that is being moved and your Jobcentre has closed, you are like, “Where do I go for help now?” We would at the very least like to see any closures postponed until we have had a full rollout of Universal Credit and the Scottish Government’s devolved powers have been up and running in their time as well, just to avoid any additional confusion for people.

Chair

Thank you for that. I see Ian Murray has a supplementary question.

Ian Murray

Yes, and apologies for being slightly late. I had to nip away from the Committee. You may have covered this already, but I wonder if part of the problem here is like we have with any public service, like primary schools. We built them all at a time when populations were of a certain size, and they have developed, and cities have developed, differently. In terms of this proposal, obviously closing these centres looks complicated and difficult because of accessibility, but is there a potential to be looking at where we do provide those services? It seems to me that maybe it is not the quantum of physical Jobcentres we have but the location. Is there a way we can be looking at persuading the DWP to try to access these services without physically having to go into one of these offices that takes you four hours to walk or an hour and a half by three buses? Is that something that your clients would be saying to you, “No, it is too difficult to get to. It is just impossible to get to”? It is about accessibility rather than the number.

Frank Mosson

Certainly, the routes that clients have to follow using the buses or walking is a concern, so yes, it is about accessibility. I walked the route from Bridgeton to Shettleston Jobcentre and it took me an hour and five minutes on a nice dry day, I have to say.

Ian Murray

We have the maps here, yes.

Frank Mosson

It is unusual in Glasgow to have a nice dry day. I also returned and it took me an hour and 15 minutes coming back because it is uphill. You can see that there are issues there. I know we have heard a lot about Google and things like that. I think the difficulty is that unless you know the terrain and the territory, it becomes very difficult to see how it impacts on real people’s lives. While accessibility is key, there is also another issue that I think is important and it came out in our survey. It is in regard to territoriality, which does exist still unfortunately in Glasgow and in other cities. Twenty-six per cent of the people we surveyed expressed concern about travelling into another neighbourhood and expressed concern about their safety.

Deidre Brock

I want to ask Ms McCormack a question. The Poverty Alliance has come up with some specific recommendations to help mitigate the effects of this policy. One of the examples is the travel costs that were mentioned before and about paying those upfront for folk travelling to a Jobcentre so that it is in advance and they have money in their hand before that happens. Could I ask how the DWP has responded to that?

Carla McCormack

They haven’t. The reason we have made that suggestion is because people have come to us and said the £4.50 is a lot, especially out of £73.10 a week jobseeker’s allowance. We spoke to a lone parent—it was through one of our members, One Parent Families Scotland—and she said that losing £4.50 a week for her is like losing a food shop for a day. That is really what we are talking about here. I know there had been a bit of talk earlier about destitution and things like that, but it is all relative. While many of us in this room might be able to afford to lose £4.50 a week, if you are living on the breadline that is a big difference. Obviously, we hope that the current proposals will not go ahead, but if they do and people are going to have to pay this £4.50 a week, we would really like to see that added to their benefit level in advance so that they are not having to skip, for example, eating for a day just to ensure that they can attend their Jobcentre appointment.

Mr Christopher Chope

Dr Johnstone said that there are 20,000 extra people going to go to these Jobcentres as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit. Can he put that in context? Is that 20,000 out of 200,000 at the moment or 2 million? What percentage are we talking about?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

At the moment, when we are talking about the Jobcentres in Glasgow now—others will be able to help me with this—I think we are talking about 31,000 attending the Jobcentres across the city, so we are talking about an additional 20,000.

Mr Christopher Chope

That means that you have 16 Jobcentres at the moment and 2,000 people a year are visiting each of those Jobcentres? That does not seem very many. If we work out how many per week, that is—

Reverend Dr Johnstone

1,000 a week, probably slightly more.

Mr Christopher Chope

It is 1,000 a week visiting all 16 you mean?

Carla McCormack

It varies.

Mr Christopher Chope

You say there are 31,000 visits to Jobcentres in Glasgow at the moment and you have 16 Jobcentres, so that means per Jobcentre there is an average of 2,000 visits per year. Two thousand visits per year is not particularly busy, is it, if you only have 2,000 visits a year at each Jobcentre?

Carla McCormack

That is the number of claimants rather than the total number of visits.

Mr Christopher Chope

I do not have the figures but that is just on the basis of what was just said.

Anna Soubry

You have 31,000 claimants who would on average go every fortnight, is that right?

Carla McCormack

Yes.

Chair

I think that the charge as such or the question that was put to you is: are these Jobcentres being underutilised, given that there seems to be a high number, although that is debatable, for the Glasgow service? Is there a sense that these places are not busy at all?

Carla McCormack

I do not think anyone has ever walked into a Jobcentre and seen Jobcentre advisers looking for something to do. Any time we have been in or claimants are trying to access services, it is certainly always a busy environment.

Mr Christopher Chope

Can I have one more question to try to help put this in context? How many Citizens Advice Bureaux are there in Glasgow?

Frank Mosson

There are eight Citizens Advice Bureaux in Glasgow and one telephone service.

Mr Christopher Chope

We will have the same number of Jobcentres as CABs? You have tailored your service to try to fit the needs of the community, I imagine?

Frank Mosson

No, unfortunately not. Our Citizens Advice Bureaux are located in the most deprived areas of Glasgow, yes, but unfortunately it is not in every deprived area of Glasgow. I would probably be arguing for more Citizens Advice Bureaux in Glasgow.

Anna Soubry

Do you have one in the city centre?

Frank Mosson

There is one in the city centre. It is Glasgow Central and it is located at the Merchant City at the moment.

Mr Christopher Chope

Do you think your eight locations, including one in the city centre, are more convenient for your clients than the current locations of the Jobcentres?

Frank Mosson

Yes. You will find in Easterhouse, for example, the bureau is located directly across from the Jobcentre. In Bridgeton it is located just round the corner, a five-minute walk around the corner. In Parkhead, it is a five-minute walk down the street. Castlemilk CAB is located in the same shopping precinct as the Jobcentre as well. The Citizens Advice Bureaux do tend to be near Jobcentres, but it is not by plan. We are located in areas of deprivation.

Margaret Ferrier

I have to declare an interest in this again because I was a volunteer at the local Citizens Advice Bureau in Parkhead. I know how busy the CAB offices are and what they deal with. Just to clarify, it is not just people coming in and looking for benefits advice. It is things like debt advice, consumer advice, family, everything. As far as I am aware, my local Citizens Advice Bureaux are very, very busy and I know that others throughout the city are. As you say, they do a great job but we need more of them.

Frank Mosson

Yes.

Chair

We are running out of time and we are very grateful for your appearance today. Maybe just to round up, I think I heard Mr Johnstone say that he had a meeting with the Minister. What representations have you made on behalf of the groups that you serve? What responses have you had and what do you now expect to happen in the next stages of the consultation and rollout of this programme? Can we start with you, Ms McCormack?

Carla McCormack

We have recently submitted evidence to the DWP consultation regarding the Glasgow Jobcentre closures. We will do similar now with Broxburn. In terms of next steps, we have not heard a great deal back from the DWP. We had an acknowledgement e-mail yesterday and that was it. I am sure there will be agreement from Martin and Frank here on this as well. First, the consultation has been massively unsatisfactory so far. The picking and choosing of which Jobcentres you will consult on has been massively disappointing. We do not feel there has been anywhere near enough effort to reach out to claimants in those Jobcentres and get their views. As well as an equality impact assessment, we would really like to see any decisions poverty-proofed to make sure that they are not impacting further on people in poverty. If we push people even further into poverty, we are just widening inequality and that ends up costing society much more than it would to just keep these Jobcentres running.

Chair

What did you say to the Minister, Reverend Johnstone, when you met him and what response did you get?

Reverend Dr Johnstone

We said that we felt that this was unfairly impacting on our very poorest communities. We said that we felt that there were huge issues about travel and about digital inclusion. We made an offer to work with other organisations and agencies to ensure that we got beyond simply an organisational response to the problems that are here to directly hearing from and working alongside benefit claimants. We were politely listened to.

Chair

So it was a minister-to-Minister conversation?

Frank Mosson

The bureaux have submitted their own responses to the consultation and Citizens Advice Scotland have submitted their response. I have to echo Carla’s comments in regard to the consultation process. There was absolutely no consultation and we had no idea that this was happening until we read it in the media. Afterwards, we were informed and we were invited to an event in the east but unfortunately we only had three days’ notice. We were able to attend but other stakeholder organisations obviously could not because only four other organisations could manage along on three days’ notice, which is not a lot of time.

Chair

This has to be very tiny, Anna, because the Minister is waiting.

Anna Soubry

I think you said, and I know obviously that Margaret will probably help, on the cost of travel, is there a travel card that you said was £4.50 on the bus for a day?

Frank Mosson

Yes, I did. No, it is £1 for every single journey.

Anna Soubry

£1 for every single journey?

Frank Mosson

Yes, so if you go on the bus once it is £1 but if you take two buses it is £2.

Anna Soubry

Right, and there was something for a day that was £4.50? Ms Ferrier can help us with this.

Chair

We are extremely grateful to you for coming down and giving us evidence and helping us out with this inquiry. If there is anything you felt you had missed or needs to be re-emphasised or anything that you would like to further contribute, please get in touch with the Committee. Mr Mosson?

Frank Mosson

There was just one thing I was going to say, because I was basically speaking about the consultation process, and just to finish, for me if there is an organisation that is properly customer-focused they should be asking their customers and it would be very nice if we could ask the Minister whether there will be a customer-focused survey or consultation with the users of the Jobcentre.

Chair

I can already see my colleagues scribbling that down as you speak. Thank you ever so much.

Reverend Dr Johnstone

That is certainly our offer to the Minister. We would be happy to work with others to facilitate that.

Chair

Fantastic. Thank you ever so much for coming along today, and if we could have the Minister and the civil servants please. Examination of witnesses

Witnesses

Damian Hinds MP, Karen Gosden and Susan Park.

Chair

Minister, good afternoon to you. We are extremely grateful to you for coming along at such short notice, and I know that you have two colleagues with you this afternoon. For the record, if you could say who you are, we obviously know who you represent, but if you have anything to say by the way of a short statement, we would be delighted to hear that. We will start with you, Minister, and maybe you could introduce your colleagues.

Damian Hinds

I certainly will, thank you, Chairman, and thank you for inviting us along. It is a good opportunity to be able to say a bit more about the change that we have had with the People and Locations Programme in DWP, which of course is nationwide but includes Scotland and there has been particular interest from colleagues in Glasgow and elsewhere around Scotland and throughout the UK. As I say, we are grateful for the opportunity. I am joined by Karen Gosden, who has run what we call the PLP—the People and Locations Programme—so effectively, formulating the estate strategy and enacting it, and Susan Park, who manages the Jobcentre Plus network nationwide.

Chair

I am grateful. We have just heard from community organisations. We have heard from local Members of Parliament and we have heard from the unions involved in all of this. All of them are extremely unhappy and have raised a number of issues and points that we want to explore with you. It does not seem to be getting communicated that this is a particularly good idea. Why is it that they are maybe all wrong and you are right when it comes to this, and are you prepared to listen to some of the what I found quite compelling cases and issues that they raised with us and some of the real difficulties that people have presented? Would you review what you are planning and are you prepared to listen to the range of community organisations that have concerns?

Damian Hinds

We are absolutely prepared to listen and have and do listen. It is important that all views are taken into account. That is why we are running public consultations on a number of these proposals where they fall outside of what are called ministerial criteria, the distance and time outwith we consider it is right to have a public consultation. Your question was: why do we think we are right? Any organisation periodically reviews its physical lay down: it reviews what it does and how it does it. That is a normal part of operating. For 20 years that has not been possible in DWP because a PFI contract was signed in 1998 by the then Labour Government, which tied DWP in Scotland as in England and throughout the UK into what was quite a restrictive arrangement, which expires in March 2018. Almost all of the buildings we are talking about fall under that prime contract.

Chair

Just to be clear, you are doing this, then, as an exercise because the contract is over and there is an opportunity to review the estate? If there was no opportunity to review the estate then would you be leaving all these Jobcentres alone?

Damian Hinds

By definition, Chairman, if there were no opportunities then I guess it would not be possible. We may well have reviewed some of these items on a different timing if there were no lease-expiry dates to consider and so on, but let me speak a little more if I may about the rationale.

Chair

I am trying to understand whether it is about an opportunity or whether it is need that is driving this. What you seem to be saying is all about the fact that you have an opportunity to restructure and reorganise the estate. That is what we are hearing just now.

Damian Hinds

We were talking, Chairman, about the timing and the timing is indeed to do with the fact that the leases all expire, or the PFI with the leases attached to it, expires in March 2018 after a full two decades. That is, by definition, a rare opportunity in that sense to review. What we are doing is seeking to make better use of buildings, make better use of facilities and put our resourcing—put Scottish and English and Welsh taxpayers’ money—into the things that we know make the biggest positive difference in helping people into work and then helping people progress at work. We had a number of buildings that were underutilised and it has been possible in some cases to merge operations in some of those buildings. The overall exercise does save quite a lot of money; it saves £180 million annually recurring, which is of course a substantial sum, but our primary objective was to end with a network of Jobcentres that had good coverage right across the UK, were accessible to people who are in the job market and need help finding a job as well as doing some of the administration of the benefits that we have, and that is how we have come up with this set of plans.

Chair

I am just trying to clarify. We know that you want to try to improve the service and we have heard you and your colleagues say that in several debates and the statement, but I want to try to clarify this fact. I think what I am hearing is that this change and this new programme is coming about because this contract has ended and there is an opportunity to look at the estate, to look at the delivery across the United Kingdom. It is not based on needs assessments or having a look at what is required in terms of claimants and demand. It is just an opportunity to review this because the contract is up and you can now look at the estate again.

Damian Hinds

Chairman, I think one has to separate the thing itself from the timing of it. What I have been trying to explain is that PFI was signed almost 20 years ago. It expires 20 years later. By definition that is the moment at which you review the operation, you review the network, the physical estate. I mean you could do such a review and decide you really did not want to change anything at all. Then you would go into new negotiations and in some cases buildings that you might want to renew and you might not be able to, and that is a different set of decisions, but the timing is absolutely to do with the fact that there is a 20-year PFI coming to an end. What we have decided we want to do is try to make best use of resources, try to make sure that we do not have empty space, that we utilise what we have, that we have modern facilities. There are some things you can do well in a big Jobcentre that you cannot do as well in a small Jobcentre, things that are helpful for getting people into work. We are putting more of our resourcing into frontline staff, so we are currently recruiting work coaches, including in Scotland and including in Glasgow, and we expect to have more people working in Jobcentres in Scotland at the end of this process in 2018 than we do right now, but what we will not have is nearly so much—there will still be some but not nearly so much—unused space on which you pay the full rent but you do not get the benefit as there is now.

Chair

Another opening question about the process issue. This has been announced in two waves. We received the announcement, which I think came as a shock as we have heard from MPs, trade unions and community organisations. It came out of the blue that there was what you call the pilot exercise first and then there was a subsequent announcement that was UK-wide. Why were there two different announcements made about the Glasgow Jobcentres and then a subsequent one for the whole United Kingdom?

Damian Hinds

Where did you get the word “pilot” from?

Chair

It has been described as such. If it is not a pilot then tell us what it was, then.

Damian Hinds

Not by me, Chairman. There was a series of announcements when it was possible to move forward in particular areas. It is not the case that there was one exercise for Glasgow and then another exercise for the rest of the UK.

Chair

So why then was the Glasgow one announced separately?

Damian Hinds

There were a number of locations. I would have to defer to Karen.

Chair

We would really like to know why Glasgow was announced separately.

Damian Hinds

Glasgow was announced before some other cities.

Chair

Why?

Damian Hinds

Because it was ready at that time to do it, but it was not the first.

Chair

Why could you not have waited a few more weeks?

Damian Hinds

There were others. We then decided for all sorts of reasons that for the remaining sites, and it was public knowledge that this PFI was coming to an end, many people would have known that between now and March 2018 we would have had to finalise—I mean, one way or another, including deciding where we were going to stay, we would have had to finalise those decisions and we determined—

Chair

I am still not understanding and hearing why Glasgow was announced earlier.

Damian Hinds

I have explained that Glasgow was not singled out. It is not that Glasgow was done and then everywhere else was done. There were a number of places where we were in a position to make announcements, to be able to tell the staff what was going to happen to start the consultations where necessary and we were doing it in a staged programme. We decided that for the ones that had not yet been announced it made sense, because of the great interest that there was, to announce them all on one day and that is what we did. It was an enormous communications exercise, we have a lot of staff in a lot of different locations and our primary objective was to make sure that our staff heard about this before anybody else did. That was a big logistical exercise in its own right, managed by Karen and by our senior leadership team. It is absolutely not the case, and I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding, that in some way the Jobcentres in Glasgow were some sort of pilot. It was not a pilot, it was not an advance exercise or anything like that. It just was the case that on that date that was the date on which it was possible to make announcements and to speak to staff and to move forward on proposals for Jobcentre Plus.

Chair

I think you can understand why we are a bit cynical about exercises like this applied to Scotland first then the rest of the United Kingdom, because that has happened in history on several occasions.

Damian Hinds

Let me be clear it was not—

Anna Soubry

A conspiracy theory.