Dear colleague
I thought it was time that I wrote to you all to give you an update on progress with the welfare reforms and to thank you for your hard work throughout the last year. I appreciate how quickly you moved to introduce the measures to Get Britain Working and the good response to reducing unnecessary costs. I also wanted to give you some more information about how we hope things will develop in the months ahead. In particular I wanted to talk about your role in making the reforms a reality around the country.
There are three major elements to our plans for changes to the welfare and welfare to work systems as well as a number of smaller changes in the pipeline.
The first is the plan to replace all the existing out of work benefits and tax credits with the Universal Credit. The Credit will be structured in a way that means that support for claimants tapers off at a steady rate once a claimant gets into work, meaning that they will always be better off working more hours or earning more money. It should put an end to the process of working with a customer to establish whether they are better off going back to work.
At the moment the legal changes needed for this are being debated in the House of Commons and, if all goes well, they should be approved later this year. We will give you more information as time goes by, but the Universal Credit is on track to be launched for new claims in 2013.
The second major reform is the move of more than 1.5 million claimants off incapacity benefit, either onto Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) or, if they are found fit for work, to Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). As you may know, we have made a number of changes to the process we will use to assess existing Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants as a result of an independent review by Professor Malcolm Harrington and as a result of a trial exercise in Burnley and Aberdeen. We will also be making changes to the way we assess new claimants for ESA as well. I am planning to send you a package of information about the new approach in the next two to three weeks so you are fully aware of what to expect.
We have now started the full roll-out of the migration of claimants off IB, though it will not be until later in the summer that you will see significant results from the process. This is because it takes several weeks for claimants to be contacted, assessed to see if they are fit to attend a work capability assessment, invited to the assessment and then a decision is taken.
The third major element of our reforms is the introduction of the Work Programme. This will replace all of our existing employment programmes, and will start in June in most parts of the country. The Work Programme is a very new approach to this kind of work with the longer term unemployed, as the providers are paid on a payment by results basis. For conventional adult job seekers, for example, they are only paid a full success fee when a claimant has been in work for eighteen months. We are giving them freedom to design individualised support, but the success payments mean that they will have to follow the best possible approach to welfare to work if they are to be rewarded financially. Again, we will provide more information to you about the Work Programme in your area shortly.
The flexibility we are giving Work Programme providers is also a key part of the way we want you and your colleagues in Jobcentre Plus to work in future. We want you to have much more discretion in the nature of the support you provide to jobseekers, and do what you believe is right for them. We have removed almost all of Jobcentre Plus’s targets, and have introduced the Flexible Fund to allow local teams to decide how best to spend the financial support that we provide to Jobcentre Plus customers as they look for work. We know that this is a new way of working for many of you, but we want to trust the judgement of our front-line staff to a much greater degree than has been the case in the past.
There are a number of ways in particular where we would like you to use your discretion.
There has been some coverage in recent weeks of targets being set in Jobcentre Plus for the number of sanctions being issued. When I found out about this, I gave instructions that this is to stop.
As far as I am concerned, it is for your judgement about whether a sanction is appropriate. As ministers we want a system that is firm, but fair. I want our welfare system to be a clear two-way contract. I want us to do everything we can to help people find work. But equally I expect claimants to be doing everything they can to find work as well. The sanctions regime is to be used when people are failing to live up to their responsibilities, and I would want you to use the system firmly when this is happening. But where there are specific issues, like for example a mental health problem, it is really important that you use your discretion and apply common sense. Following an extended discussion I had with frontline staff last summer, we are also introducing a new scheme to help you handle cases where a customer has clearly become demotivated and is not pulling their weight in jobsearch. In a few weeks time we will introduce Mandatory Work Activity. This will allow you to refer a customer on a mandatory basis for a month of near full-time activity on a local community project. They will be expected to continue to sign on and look for jobs while on the project.
We are starting the scheme on a relatively small scale across the country to see how it works, but it should give teams in the Jobcentre Plus offices an extra tool to use in cases where you believe a period of compulsory activity would be beneficial. There will be no set rules about when to refer someone – you are all best placed to know when it will be most valuable.
You will also know that we have recently changed the rules on Work Experience. I wanted you to be aware that it is not our intention that the Work Experience scheme should be totally inflexible. As you know, the prime purpose of the change is to help young jobseekers, and we have set aside funds to provide support, such as paying travel costs, to young people who are offered placements. Our intention is that this financial support should be targeted at 18-24 year olds, not just 18-21 year olds, who have been looking for a job unsuccessfully for at least three months.
But apart from the payment of expenses, the Work Experience scheme is not intended to be applied rigidly. If, for example, you have a placement that is really only suitable for an older worker, there is no earthly reason not to offer it to someone in that position – for example to a long term carer who is now looking to return to work. Nor, if there is a really important reason to do so, is it essential to wait three months before placing a younger jobseeker. Essentially just apply common sense.
And generally this typifies the approach that we want you to take. If you think something in the way we are handling a particular jobseeker is stupid, then the chances are that I would as well. So please don’t be afraid to push back, and please don’t be afraid to use discretion on the ground. I’d much rather we made a few mistakes, than ended up treating people wrongly because the rules were too inflexible.
This is going to be a really challenging period for everyone in Jobcentre Plus as we go through the combined tasks of reforming the welfare system, dealing with our unemployment challenges, and making essential changes to the organisation.
I very much appreciate the work that everyone in the organisation is putting into meeting these challenges. I intend to visit as many Jobcentres and Contact and Benefit Delivery Centres as I can over the next few months and so will look forward to holding discussion sessions with many of you.
With best wishes
Chris Grayling
Minister for Employment
i'm in nottingham and saw this flyer - sorry for the poor pic quality :O the text is: 'mutual aid. Community cafe, benefits self-help, legal support, ideas for resistance.' it was held at the sumac centre, 245 gladstone rd, forest fields on 27 march and today apparently. Not sure if there'll be more.... 
