A warm welcome to the first session of our “Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants: One year on” inquiry. I would like to start, if I may, by just making some opening remarks. It was last May that we published our “Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants” report, and our fantastic panel here were part of the expert witnesses who we received evidence from in the previous inquiry. As I say that report was published last May. The driver for this inquiry was the deaths of vulnerable claimants, social security claimants, who we were very, very concerned about. Since 2020, more than 240 people have had internal DWP process reviews into the deaths and serious harms that have occurred to claimants. We believe that that is just the tip of the iceberg. On top of this, we know that there have been nine preventions of future deaths reports from coroners about the deaths of claimants. Most recently, for example, Jade Logan, a 28-year-old mother, took her own life in May last year, and that was because of her PIP—personal independence payment—being stopped, which was remarkably reminiscent of Philippa Day, who died under similar circumstances. We know that there have been 1,300 deaths of people who have been waiting for personal independence payment assessments. We also know that people on employment and support allowance support group are six times more likely to die compared with the working age population as a whole. Our report made 21 recommendations. Only four of these were accepted by the Government in their response to the report last July. It is with this background information that I start this inquiry into our review of this report and the progress that may have been made. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome our witnesses today. We have Daphne Hall, who is the vice-chair of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers. We have Professor Michael Preston-Shoot, who is the joint convener of the National Association of Adult Safeguarding Boards, Caroline Selman, who is a senior research fellow at the Public Law Project, and Rick Burgess, who is co-chair of the Disabled People’s Organisations Forum England, and facilitator at the Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel. Rick joins us virtually. Let us start. It is up to you who wants to go first on this. From your own experience, since the publication of our “Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants” report, what have you noticed has been the change in safeguarding that you have observed from the DWP?

I do not mind going first if that is okay. I will start with the positives. Two things that are good: now on the journal we have an additional support needs banner and an accessibility banner, so that appears on the top of the screen so the agent can see it. It is much more noticeable, visible, so that the person can see it with a link through to explain what the needs are. That is very good. The trouble with the additional support is one that can only be filled in by an agent, so a DWP agent, a work coach or a case manager. I am not completely convinced that that is proactively filled in—that they seek information. As an adviser, we will try to make sure information goes on it, but if the person does not have anyone representing them, I do not think they know about it, so they do not know to make sure those needs go on. There is also some concern that that is not always looked at. We have certainly seen examples where there is a vulnerability marker on, but it has not been taken note of. It just needs to be used well. It is good that it is there, but I think there is more to be done to proactively fill it in and to make sure it is properly checked. I think the clinical governance has improved with the fact they have just done their first report—an annual report has just come out this week—and we now have the chief medical adviser, who oversees a lot of the safeguarding training and the training of the healthcare assessors. That has brought a lot more consistency. Again, I think there is more to be done, I do not think everyone has had the full level of safeguarding training that they should have, but I know that they are on it, so I think that is good.

Daphne, in terms of the type of training, do you know what the programme involves? There are different levels, I understand.

Yes, we do not get to see the training materials, but it is at least now consistent across the assessors. The assessors—Serco, Capita, whatever—used to do it themselves, whereas now it is held centrally by DWP and the chief medical adviser oversees it. I think there is an improvement there because of that. I know they are working hard and it is going in the right direction; I think that is a real positive. Going back to some of the recommendations in your report, one of the things you highlighted was the Help to Claim service. Obviously, it was only by phone or online, and the jobcentre said they could help anyone else. One of the recommendations was that it should be fully replicated, but that certainly was not the case. People who could not do phone or online struggled to access support. The enhanced support journey, which all ESA claimants went on if they did not migrate—if they had not applied by their deadline—helped them through to submitting a claim, but it did not get them through to the first payment, and significant numbers failed the ID check because they just could not see the claim through. The claim was never actually effectively made, and they did not migrate safely. That was a real problem. The enhanced support journey was good—again, I want to recognise that. I know there was lots and lots of work done by people, and lots of really good stuff done, but because it only went through to submitting a claim, people fell off at the end of it—that was a real problem. Another thing that you raised in your report was the ability to contact the advanced customer support service leads—the ACSSLs, as they are often called. There is still no clear route for advisers into that. The partnership managers are mostly good, though there is some geographical variability. That is the main route for escalation, but we do not have direct access through to the ACSSLs. When they were first set up, advisers used to have that access, and I would like to see it reinstated. That would help with the whole multi-agency working. I think they are probably my key points on that so I will pass on to the others.

You have been quite positive. Is there anything else? Obviously, you write to us regularly.

I was saving myself a bit for later. I do have lots of specific samples, Debbie, but that was a very broad overview. I can come in with a lot more detail but perhaps I should let others speak as well.

Michael, would you like to come in?

Thank you, Chair. Rather like Daphne, I will start with the positive, but it is a mixed picture. In terms of strategic relationships between DWP and safeguarding adult board chairs nationally, there was certainly momentum after the Select Committee report was published. There was very clear engagement and curiosity about what an adult safeguarding duty within DWP would look like, and very clear curiosity about what already existed in the legal rules—the 1989 Children Act, the Care Act 2014—in terms of the strategic and operational duties to co-operate. There was, therefore, a very clear momentum initially. I am not sure that that momentum has necessarily been maintained strategically, and I think that might be in part because of the enormity of the task that senior leaders in DWP feel that they are facing, in terms of training everybody to the appropriate level as a prelude then to thinking about what additional legal rules or policy directives might be necessary, in addition to what already exists in the Care Act and the Children Act. In terms of strategic relationships between ACSSLs—as you have heard—and individual safeguarding adults boards, by and large that has been very good. The ACSSLs have regularly attended safeguarding adults boards and, in some places, subgroups responsible for delivering the strategic plans of boards. I have had positive reports about the engagement by ACSSLs when receiving requests from safeguarding adults boards for information about particular claimants—for example, as part of either section 42 Care Act inquiries, or, perhaps more often, safeguarding adults reviews under section 44. I have more of a question mark in terms of the number of referrals coming from DWP into local authorities either for a safeguarding adults review or for an adult safeguarding inquiry. There is much more to do in in that area. There are examples—and I am sure Daphne and Caroline have others—of where an apparent inflexibility in DWP rules is placing claimants at substantial risk of losing their entitlement to benefits, for example.

Is that inflexibility of the rules or the application of the rules?

That is a very good question, and I do not think I know the rules well enough to be able to answer that, but I am sure Daphne does.

Yes, they have flexibility, and they can apply easements. I have examples where if they have not put a fit note in, they will not apply the easements when it is clear that somebody has problems.

The picture is variable. There was initial impetus and determination to implement safeguarding within DWP, and between DWP, local authorities and other partners, but also an awareness within DWP that this was an enormous task to undertake, and I have a sense that perhaps the progress has somewhat slowed. If I may, I will say just two other things. I have already said that there are, within the existing legal rules, duties to co-operate. If the Committee is—as I understood it is from last time and now—minded to recommend strengthening those legal rules, it would be helpful if the Committee were to give more direction to DWP than perhaps was present in the report that you published, good and welcome though that was. The other point to make is around the use of the word “vulnerable”. It does not appear in the Care Act. I think I am right in saying it doesn’t appear in the Children Act1989. We are much more likely now to be talking about it in relation to adults at risk, and if DWP could align its language and processes with those in the Care Act and the statutory guidance that accompanies it, that would be helpful. It would also be helpful for our colleagues in Scotland, who talk about “adults at risk”, but not about vulnerability. We could do with more alignment.

Thank you—that is really helpful. Caroline?

Yes. Again, starting with the positives, and on a really basic point, I think it is worth noting that, in large part thanks to the recommendations from this Committee, there is, for example, the written statement and a team whose job it is—you cannot get anything done unless there is somebody whose job it is to do it. Also, the focus of this is on safeguarding workstreams, but in terms of the related thing of that wider culture shift, it is worth noting some of the pathfinder work that is going on and the fact that there does seem to be a genuine enthusiasm and commitment in terms of doing things differently. We have also had positive examples of some good collaborative engagement at different levels within DWP. In terms of where things could go further or be better, when you look at the actions that are being set out—for example, in the written statement—there is a lot of focus on responding reactively to safeguarding concerns, and on how DWP is better equipped to respond reactively to things. There is less of a focus on what the Committee did a good job of highlighting in the report: the need also to understand how policies and procedures might be driving systemic risk and systemic harm. One example of that is sanctions, which we talked about last time. A predecessor Committee recommended that there should be an evaluation of how that drove harm for individuals, which was not something that was taken forward. There is not a good understanding within DWP of how policies, procedures or aspects of the legal framework might be driving harm. The second thing is about having real clarity about what exactly is in scope of the different action plans and workstreams. Rick might be able to speak a bit more about this, but again, to stick to sanctions, it was not clear at the beginning what was or was not in scope, to really pin down what exactly is being taken forward to look at concrete policies and procedures. The last thing is having real clarity on how things are being evaluated— which, again, might be one thing to raise and follow up with the DWP—and also the granularity of that. What is the base case that this is being evaluated against? That is something that DWP sometimes struggles with in terms of having a current picture of what things look like. How is that being evaluated? Does it include feedback from people on the frontline and who are using the services? Also, does it involve an independent element? What are the actual measures and how are they being evaluated?

Thank you. Rick, you have heard what other guests have mentioned, but what is your experience?

I would start with the main thing that has changed, which is that we have started to have meetings with Dr Gail Allsopp—the chief medical adviser of the DWP—and disabled people who have been long term involved in issues of death and harm because of DWP actions. From that, I can quickly answer what was being discussed before. There is level 1 safeguarding training to be rolled out for all DWP staff—civil service level 1 safeguarding—and clinical staff have to do mandatory safeguarding training at level 3. Those are in process. There are a few other things. There is a multidisciplinary team that is more established. A safeguarding nurse has been appointed, and there are a few other things. That has changed, but I would say that was probably a result of the report but also the continuing pressure from our groups and other groups, particularly some researchers who have been so dedicated. I have to mention Mo Stewart and those involved in Deaths by Welfare: Dr China Mills, John Pring and so on. I am going to say Nick Dilworth because, although he has left us, I still want to keep his name there. There are two rails this works on: are they operating in a safer way, and is the culture allowing them to do that? I think those are at odds with each other. The culture change is very slow and very difficult, and we know that there is still a lot of inflexibility. As a previous witness said, they have this discretion for easements, but they often do not use it, and that is a cultural problem. DWP still has the mindset of being disciplinarian or authoritarian on an organisation basis, so individuals we are helping probably have not felt any difference—they are still very anxious, fearful and angry. I would say trust left town a long time ago; it is fear and anger now. In terms of trying to contact people and do things, yes, it is a bit better, but the “you never know” nature of that means that it is arbitrary, inconsistent and nowhere near enough. As you said, they have only taken up four out of 21 recommendations. In the report, I think it was very good that it talked about culture change, because you cannot make anything work just by changing laws. I do have to say that culture change does need leadership. I am just going to go to a news story here from 21 May, in which Pat McFadden, headlining his own opinion piece, said “I’m sick of people taking advantage of fit notes who should be at work”, thus libelling claimants and GPs. That is not the leadership that will lead to culture change, and it is just not going to work if that attitude continues: grabbing headlines, negative approaches—“scrounger rhetoric”, as we call it— pushing people around and subjecting them to a system that seems all too predictable and relentless. Disabled people feel they have endured nearly two decades of sustained slander in the press, by the press and by Government figures. I would say that also breaches article 8 of the UNCRPD, which places a duty on states to promote the rights of disabled people and to combat stereotypes. I think “mixed” is the politest way I would frame it. Dragging their heels very reluctantly towards being safer and less harmful might be the nicest way I could sum it up.

Thanks, Rick. I am going to stick with you, if I may, to look at what we might do about this. One of the key recommendations in the report was for system-wide change to be built in at every level across the DWP, from policy development all the way through to policy review. What are your views on how safeguarding is now being considered in that way? What is your experience of that?

I would actually go back—and I know it is mentioned in the report—to the Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel. To do that kind of consistent and persistent change you need to create structures where co-production is empowered. You do that by actually giving away some power and having external independent bodies being able to coproduce with you, setting up those structures. In Greater Manchester, my DPO has a contract with the combined authority but the panel is independent of everything. It sets its own agenda; it does what it wants. You need that level of infrastructure in place, along with a willingness from the organisation undergoing change to have those conversations with this empowered, independent structure made up of—as I would recommend—disabled people, experts and DWP personnel. It has to be in a space where it can challenge, and I think in this instance it is going to have to have quite a lot of strength given to it to be persistent. I think that will be needed, not only at a national level but through regional boards that can undertake parts of this work. I know that you have welfare rights advisers, who will have connections locally and regionally. There is the safeguarding board as well. We do not get to get together to talk that much, so it would be really handy to start setting up that infrastructure. I do think that, if you are going to change both the rules and the culture, which is what is necessary, that is going to be five to 10 years in reality. I would also say that the recommendations in the Amnesty International “Social Insecurity” report have real power to make these changes around a statutory inquiry into social security, as do some of their other key recommendations. It is the cliché of the oil tanker: it takes days, if not weeks, to slow down and turn around. We have to accept that, but we have to do it because right now there will be people being harmed. It is at a scale that dwarfs every other scandal in British society over the last few decades, in terms of the number of people hurt, harmed and dead. That is the only way I can see that it would work: with empowered independent groups having oversight.

Thank you. What you are saying is that disability advisory panel that has been set up is not enough and we need to look at it in terms of a regional structure. What are your views about how it is working at the moment?

The panels are selected by the Ministry. That is the first problem.

How should they be selected, brought together and set up? What happened in Greater Manchester?

A contract needs to be put out for tender to disabled people’s organisations. An organisation can win that contract and then act as the contract holder to facilitate a panel that it puts together—not the Government but the disabled people’s facilitating organisation. Obviously, it will liaise with the Government, and they can chat about things. However, if you are going to do a co-production, it starts at the very beginning who is selected to be in that room. At the moment, the Government have selected who is in that room. That is not co-production.

I will start by echoing and emphasising some of the stuff that Rick mentioned on the importance of the culture that goes with it, recognising maybe a shift in power. We talk a lot about people’s trust and mistrust of the DWP, but I think a lot of this is also about how DWP trusts the people that it is working with, In terms of the need for more structured and regional focus, at a local level, you do find strong networks of different organisations and individuals already in place. I think some of this is about how DWP works and engages with those structures. To give an example from Birmingham and Coventry, where we have been doing a lot of work with the Central England Law Centre, there is a strong network of different local advice agencies who work very closely with the council, which have been doing a lot of good work around digital exclusion. It would be great to have the DWP very much a part of that, as a partner, working collaboratively to tackle some of the issues, and doing that in a genuinely collaborative and trusted way. The importance of structures comes back to what Daphne was saying, which is that with individual partnership managers you can get good relationships that work really well. However, what you want to do is move away from that being dependent on the pot luck of having an individual who is good at collaborating and knows how to do collaboration, and get to the point where that is consistently embedded in the structures and the culture across the board. As Rick was saying, that does take things, such as structures, culture and leadership from the top, so that people know part of their job is to engage—to work with, not just consult. The last thing is to emphasise that when you talk about co-production and co-design, that is going right back to the very beginning. It is not just the consultation. I think that came out in the Committee’s previous report. It is going back to the beginning and designing what you are looking at in the first place, being shaped collaboratively with people. I think that is in itself a big culture shift of learning to cede some control and power in doing that.

Just following that on a more regional or local level, I think the thing about power is really important. Going back to what I said with the ACSSLs, we cannot get access to them except through the work coach. Why not? Whether it is a disabled person’s organisation, their advisers or whoever, why does somebody at the DWP have to gatekeep it? It is on the DWP’s terms when it does multi-agency working and it should not be—anybody should be allowed to request that and start it off. It is exactly what Rick said. The power should not all be with the DWP. Other people should be able to come in and introduce something, which is what we are often trying to do. It does get blocked all too often. There are pockets when it works really well. When the different agencies come together and work together for the claimant, it works really well. However, at the moment, it just feels to us—I know we see the worst cases—that it is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole thing that Rick said about culture, we are not there to fight against them; we are there with the aim of getting claimants the benefits they are entitled to as quickly and as painlessly as possible, with few hiccups—and if hiccups come, dealing with them with quickly so that the flags are red. Only the case manager can fill that banner in. Why can’t the claimant fill in what their needs are on that banner? They are the person who knows that best. It is all controlled by DWP. I feel that there needs to be an acceptance that you have to lose control to work well together—not all the control, but share it a little bit more, maybe.

It is strange that I can have access to ACSSLs. Every single adults safeguarding board has a link to an ACSSL, so every single safeguarding adults board chair can communicate with that ACSSL and vice versa. It is bizarre that Daphne and colleagues are saying what they are saying, when I—in a safeguarding governance role—can have access. The other thing I would say is that “co-production” is rather like a confetti word, in the sense that we all bandy it about and assume that we mean the same thing, but we do not. I go back to my social work training years ago and Arnstein’s—a community worker from the United States—ladder of participation. I can see Rick nodding. What Rick and Daphne are trying to describe is fundamentally about equality. It is about sharing control of the agenda—who sets it, what is in it and how it is delivered. It is fundamentally about equality. But is that what everybody means by “co-production”? I think we need to demystify what we mean and establish that everybody involved is actually on the same page—that they actually mean the same thing by co-production—before we might see some real progress.

I believe in travelling hopefully, Damien, but sometimes the hope wears somewhat thin. Let me take a parallel example that I think has some relevance. Baroness Casey has recommended to the Department of Health and Social Care that there should be a national safeguarding adults board. DHSC are rolling that out at pace, and its first meeting is very shortly, in June. It is having to think about how to involve people with lived experience of adult safeguarding in that very important national oversight body. How do we do that? It is as if we have to relearn each time the lessons about the involvement of people with lived experience. I would strongly suggest we do not need to relearn those lessons. We know that real co-production—real citizen involvement—is exactly what Daphne and Rick have said. It is about the giving up of power, the ceding of power, and opening up the agenda, the terms of reference, the key lines of inquiry and so on, so that everybody sitting around the table feels equal in their ability to influence the direction of travel. We know that can happen. Sometimes I feel that—and it is not just central Government; it is also local government and universities—we are always having to reinvent the wheel about what we mean by citizen participation and co-production.

Yes. Do you want to look at that or the Timms review?

On paper it looks good, and they are trying different ways of gathering information, for example, facilitating the new “workshop in a box” approach. However, I remain a little sceptical. How is that information going to be used? As Rick said, it is quite a small group of people selected by the Government. At the end of the day, Pat McFadden has made it very clear that whatever they come up with, it will be his decision as to what gets done. Maybe it is too early in the process, but I do not know what the disability advisory panel is doing. I looked at the panel’s page the other day. It says who has been selected, but I don't know what has been happening. The updates from the co-chairs on the Timms review are literally one page. Maybe it is just too early in the process. I know there have been nearly 40,000 responses. How will the panel go through all of those? I do not know how many are from individuals and how many are from organisations. It is hard to see how it is going to happen. There is also the commission on social security, led by Michael Orton, which has worked with disabled people and produced proposals for what a disability benefit might look like. I think that is a good example of co-production, done over a number of years at the University of Warwick. It has worked out what a good disability benefit could look like. As far as I am aware, the Government have not even spoken to the commission. It has done years of what I think is good co-production, with a focus on it being created by people with lived experience. I feel the Government could be drawing on those resources rather than selecting a small group of people. Maybe I will be proved wrong. At the end of the day, the Government are saying that they can simply do what they want if it does not work within the budgetary parameters in social security. If you are going to look at how to remove barriers for disabled people, it is not just about social security; it is about employment, health, education, all sorts of things. Maybe you need to up the social security budget initially, and you might see savings in other budgets. You cannot say that you have to keep within a very fixed PIP budget. What you need to look at is how to remove those barriers. Some of that might be through PIP, some through social care, through health and so on. It needs a much more holistic approach than simply asking how much money we are going to spend on this benefit. I go back to the whole rhetoric about too many people getting PIP. The sense that disability has not increased and that people are, in some way, not properly disabled. There is this stigmatising narrative around neurodiversity and other conditions, coming not just from the press but from politicians as well. That is worrying. If that is what is coming across from the top, it does not help. Sorry, that was probably a bit of a rambling answer.

I want to emphasise the key point that it is only genuinely co-production and co-design if the outcome can genuinely change as a result of the co-production and co-design. There can be good examples of setting up different engagement groups or consultations where people come along and share their views, but it then becomes an exercise in defending and justifying decisions that have already been made. Instead it could have been something that you could actually have shifted, changed and worked together to design. I recognise that the Government are dealing with lots of competing challenges, including around budgets, for example. Again, it comes back to how far upstream you are going with co-production and co-design. It will only be genuinely effective if you are, first of all, being more open about the range of potential solutions, and being clear that the final decision can shift, change, evolve and be different as a result of that engagement.

The way we do it in disabled people’s organisations means that 75% of our executive or board and 50% of staff are all disabled people. We work from a social model—a social justice perspective—so the organisation is a group of peers that look after each other. When that organisation engages with a harmful system, there is protection in the peer group and institutional protection from the organisation. That is often not what happens in consultation, where you have individuals fed through a meat-grinding machine: come in, give your thoughts, talk about your trauma, go away. When it is an organisation, each person can support the others, and the organisation has the strength to confront the people they are engaging with and say they are not doing this right, they need to change it. There is strength in that collective institutional power, and the persistence of it requires engagement with organisations that can peer-support the people who become involved, because it could go over several months or years, and it will not always be the same person who can attend. If they are representing an organisation, you can maintain that consistency, even where people have health conditions or various impairments. It is good to engage with organisations and to do it from the beginning, as we have done. I am part of the commission on social security, which drew up the additional cost disability payment. I can say one interesting thing about the Timms commission. One of the key facilitators and authors of the final report applied to be on the Timms review and was turned down. The commission’s interest in genuinely co-produced alternative arrangements does not appear to be that great. That said, people on the panel that I know—Clenton, Tara and others—have fought very hard to steer it back towards more genuine co-production. My confidence is not massive, because the panel was chosen by the Government and can be overruled by the Secretary of State. It goes back to the need to let go of control and let infrastructure be set up that you cannot control. That infrastructure can then support genuine co-production. Good definitions of it already exist. Inclusion London has done loads of brilliant work on this, and I acknowledge Svetlana and Tracey there. None of this is difficult. None of this needs to be drawn up from fresh. We all have the work ready to go. It actually just depends on the DWP being willing to step into that forum and say it does not know everything, it does not control everything, and that it is going to learn and change. I do not think it is there yet.

Consultation needs to be genuine. Those of us who have been around for more years than I care to remember will have experienced consultation used as a mechanism for delay, or as a smokescreen—going through a process only to arrive at a decision that has already been made. Consultation has to be genuine. We also need to be clear about what we already think we know. Sometimes you are given a questionnaire and asked to fill things out. Who defines the questions? The questions assume that we know nothing at all. Rick, Caroline, Daphne, myself and others know an enormous amount. We know an awful lot. We know that adults are at risk. We know that adults die—sometimes by their own hand—as a direct result of losing entitlement to benefits and experiencing extreme poverty. We have safeguarding adults reviews about that. These are things we know. Consultation needs to take us forward. Sometimes I feel that the way consultation is set up, the way questions are asked and who defines them, is not taking any of us forward. It is just a hamster wheel.

You mentioned the consultation culture statement and setting out an approach. There is the part about doing consultation differently, better and more meaningfully, but I think a lot of the focus in that statement is on efficient decision making and the concern that consultation is getting in the way. Efficient decision making is a good thing, but the concern is when that becomes a justification for removing accountability and scrutiny. Often, seeking to cut some of those things ends up in quicker, more efficient and better decision making. An example from last year was around the PIP reforms that were put forward, where a predecessor version was challenged by Ellen Clifford, with support from PLP. The consultation that had gone along with was challenged as having not been a proper consultation. That was then picked up and not taken forward by way of an improved consultation. Instead, it was taken through legislation with limited opportunity for engagement, and ultimately those things were dropped at the last minute, and they are now being taken up through the ongoing Timms review. My point is that sometimes, in the desire to make decisions quickly and get them done, you do not just risk worse decisions, you may not even end up with a more efficient process. It is about doing consultation properly so that you get better decisions. That does not have to be an inefficient process, but it does need to be a meaningful one, which is not just about quick decision making but about better decision making.

I think we have covered most things, and I will not repeat anything, but I did notice one thing in that consultation statement: they were looking to improve equality impact assessments, and that certainly needs doing. They are unbelievably formulaic. Honestly, you could take one equality impact assessment from one piece of legislation and put it on another and it would probably look like it matched because they are that formulaic. It does not feel as though they are actually looking at what the impacts of those regulations are. There is definitely scope for improvement there, and I agree with what the others have said.

This is a question for you first, Daphne. You have raised concerns with the Committee previously about the universal credit managed migration process for vulnerable claimants. What kinds of things have you seen, and how widespread is the problem?

It is certainly widespread across the UK, because we collect evidence from all over. There are a number of things. As I mentioned, ESA claimants go on the enhanced support journey and are supposed to get a complex case coach, and it is supposed to be multi-agency working. I am not saying that it has not worked—I think it has, and the DWP certainly has its success stories, although we do not tend to see them—but there have been far too many cases where it has fallen through. I have even had advisers tell me they have been working with someone, they just need an extension on the deadline, they are going to get them there, and DWP has refused it. DWP knows there is somebody involved, somebody working hard to get the claimant over the line, but it still will not give more time. When things have gone wrong and cases have been closed at the final deadline, at that point, if the DWP has decided that it has done everything it can, it is meant to put a safeguarding referral through to the local authority. We are hearing from local authorities that those safeguarding referrals are inadequate. They do not give enough information, and they do not meet the needs to allow them to follow through. They are not doing adequate safeguarding referrals, so the concern is that those people are simply slipping through the net completely, and we do not know what is happening to them.

What is the scale of that, Daphne?

Going on the latest DWP statistics, 3% of ESA claimants fail to migrate. There are around 800,000 due to migrate, so approximately 24,000 have failed to do so. We do not know what has happened to them. Some may be genuine ones. I know some have come out of the woodwork, and the point is that they may have savings over the threshold, so it might be that they should not have been on the legacy benefit. There will be some like that. But we could be talking about 15,000 to 20,000 people who have failed to migrate safely. Some of them are claiming universal credit. However, because there is a gap, there is no transitional protection. A major problem for this group is that if they were in the support group on ESA, even though there is a gap, they should receive the LCWRA element from the start—that is regulation 21 of the transitional provisions regulations. DWP was not doing that. We brought it to DWP’s attention last October, November, and we had something of an argument. DWP legal finally conceded in January that it was wrong and that the LCWRA element should be in place. However, the computer system could not do it, so that is still happening. Not only are they not getting the LCWRA element, but they are being asked to produce fit notes and put through the work capability assessment, and are subjected to conditionality. DWP is aware of this and has conceded the point since January. I have been sending in cases. To be fair to the officials we work with through the stake holding, they have been working hard, but there seems to be a bureaucracy in the DWP machine, the universal credit system—computer says no. They are not getting it, so we are encouraging people to put in mandatory reconsiderations, but even those are sometimes being turned down. I know the DWP has just started to address some of the cases we have sent in—which is a start—for those who have lodged a mandatory reconsideration, but those are the people who probably had access to advice. There will be a whole group out there who have just been left in the wrong position. They are not getting the right amount of money, they are subject to conditionality and at risk of losing their money entirely, and, because of the changes to the LCWRA element, they may end up getting half the amount they would have received had everything gone through correctly at the right time. There are all sorts of factors at play here. Once the DWP has dealt with the people who have lodged the mandatory reconsideration, then it is going to do a trawl exercise to do it, but how long will that take? What is going to happen in that interim? I know officials are working hard, but this is one of the problems. On inappropriate appointee referral,: sometimes, on the enhanced support journey, the DWP says a person needs an appointee when they do not. You only need an appointee if you lack capacity. Particularly if it is a corporate appointee, they have to go through the Mental Capacity Act and carry out an assessment. The DWP is saying that they need an appointee. They don't. They just need a lot of support to make the claim. The DWP needs to recognise the difference between needing support to make a claim and needing an appointee, and that is causing problems and delays. The transitional element is also not always being calculated correctly. We see far too many cases of both underpayments and overpayments. Obviously, underpayment is a concern, but overpayment is also a concern, because universal credit can claw it back. There are too many people slipping through the net, even sometimes when there is an adviser working hard to help them through.

Have you seen improvements over the months that this has been in operation?

I am not sure that I have. Over the periods that ESA claimants have been migrated, we have been raising points all the way along, and as I say, some of them are still unresolved. It is not necessarily that officials are not working hard, but more that the system keeps getting in the way.

I wonder whether a specific example would be helpful. I cannot talk about prevalence as authoritatively as Daphne, but I can talk about a specific instance of an individual who was refusing to migrate to universal credit. That resulted in the loss of housing benefit and other benefits. There was initially no referral to the local authority, either under care and support or under adult safeguarding. Eventually, the social housing association contacted the local authority and raised a safeguarding concern because of escalating rent arrears and the threat of eviction. The welfare rights team in that local authority and citizens advice tried to persuade the person to migrate in order to avoid eviction, without success. That then required the local authority to make a payment to the social housing association to cover some of the rent arrears in lieu of housing benefit, in order to avoid eviction, while at the same time trying to understand why the person was so resistant to migrating and undertaking mental capacity and mental health assessments—all of which takes time and certainly rely on the person’s co-operation, or, if that is not forthcoming, a referral to the court of protection. The situation is still ongoing. The person has not migrated and is not in receipt of benefits, and there is ongoing anxiety about their being evicted, potentially becoming homeless, and about the responsibility of the local authority to rehouse in some way. That is an actual example of where we need much more flexibility from the DWP while other processes—such as mental capacity assessments—are still unfolding. While I am on a roll, you mentioned appointeeships. One of the things that safeguarding adults reviews sometimes find is a lack of curiosity when someone claims to have a lasting power of attorney for finance, or for health and welfare, and therefore I have a right to intervene with DWP in relation to a claimant’s affairs. Sometimes people say they have a lasting power of attorney when they do not, and that opens up a risk of financial abuse.

Can I come in on the migration figures? These figures from May show that 22,687 had their legacy benefit closed without claiming ESA. The DWP also records that 24,000 ESA households have not made the transition. We and other organisations, led by WinVisible, wrote to Stephen Timms about this, as did the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers. We agree with the recommendation that this group should be automatically migrated, and the problems sorted out afterwards, because it will include extremely at-risk people. The speed of migration—over 60,000 a month being migrated—is extremely risky. You now have thousands of people cut loose. There are also real-world effects of migration. A friend of mine is taking a judicial review because what is happening to a lot of people is that, while they have transitional protection, that amount of money no longer has the word “disability” attached to it. Local councils are looking at people’s income and increasing their council tax bills. People who were perhaps paying £30 or £40 a month are suddenly receiving bills for over £100. Some people are going from paying nothing to a bill for the full council tax—£1,200—on an income they are already struggling to live on. There is also another wrinkle to this, where the migrated person is a disabled person receiving social care from the local authority via direct payments—the local authority puts money into a special account for them, and they commission their own social care. The local authorities have seen the income from universal credit, without a disability label attached to it, and said the person has more income coming in, and then increased their care charges. A person can simultaneously be hit with a large council tax bill and a large care charge bill, neither of which they can afford. This has been raised with Stephen Timms. That is still happening—both the council tax situation and the care charging situation. I think that goes to the wider point about safeguarding. It is a huge, cumbersome bureaucracy, but they are being told about these things. Maybe they are working hard to change or stop it, but months are going by and people are still getting these huge bills. The councils are not waiting for the DWP to resolve it; they are moving into debt recovery, bailiffs and court action. That is happening because of the actions of the DWP or the DWP not thinking this through—at least, that is what they claim. If they had asked any of us what they needed to consider around migration, we would have told them these things.

Thank you. What you are saying about the council tax and care charges is shocking. Caroline, anything to add?

Nothing to add.

Could I add one thing? It is a point about the migration, but it is also maintaining the claim afterwards, which is a completely different matter from legacy benefits. Under universal credit, for example, you can have an automated claim review where there is very little to do—just ticking to confirm everything is still the same. That requires you to log on and check whether you have something to do. If you don’t do it—they are automated—your money is automatically suspended without any human looking at whether you might be vulnerable. It is only after suspension that someone actually looks at the case. People’s universal credit can stop simply because they have failed to complete a tick-box task—and people who are at risk may not understand that, may not know, may not go online to see that they have something to do. It is not just about getting people over the line safely; it is about keeping them safe afterwards as well, because it is very different from legacy benefits.

Could I add another issue with the migration? People are receiving very strange amounts of money, and then the DWP is reclaiming it. People are at a complete loss trying to work out whether they have been overpaid or underpaid. A friend of mine documents this particularly well. She has a maths PhD, so she can count and use spreadsheets very well. She has been migrated for several months and is still receiving weird, varying amounts, and then also claiming money back. She keeps raising it in the journal. However, as we know, the journal is never the same person picking up and doing the answers on that day. There are lots of people having these weird amounts and claims that they have to repay, and it does not seem to make any sense. To the people who are carefully working it out, I think it seems widespread enough and strange enough that I think there may be a software problem that is not being acknowledged.

Rick, I think you have already covered the first part of my question, in relation to council tax reductions. Moving on slightly from that, the Scottish Government have introduced regulations to ensure that when a disabled person migrates to universal credit, the transitional element will not be counted as unearned income in council tax reduction schemes. What is your view of that solution, and do you think it could be applied to the rest of the UK?

It needs to be clearly delineated as income that should not be counted when calculating council tax liability. I should also point out that council tax benefit used to exist, but it was removed by George Osborne in 2013. We could simply restore it, which might actually be even simpler. Yes, Scotland is doing the right thing now.

MHCLG has sent guidance to local authorities in England saying that they should not be doing this, because there have been a number of court cases that have challenged it. The trouble in England is that you have a great number of local authorities. Yes, the Scottish solution has been good, but they do not have that power in England to do it. MHCLG has sent a guidance letter, but it is only a guidance letter—it has no weight. It warns councils that they risk court action, but that court action has to be taken in each local authority. Somerset has had one, Trafford has had one, Three Rivers district council has had one, but what about all the other local authorities? It is finding a solution other than going back to the same system across the whole of England. Scotland can do this more effectively, as can Wales, but unfortunately, in England, as we are at the moment, it is not going to work.

Professor, what progress, if any, have you seen around DWP involvement in safeguarding adults boards, since the memorandum of understanding was agreed between the Department and the National Network for Chairs of Safeguarding adults boards?

I will start again with the positives. The memorandum of understanding was a step forward. It was based on a recognition that safeguarding adults reviews had uncovered—in just the way Debbie described at the outset—tragedies that should have and could have been avoided. The majority of safeguarding adults boards now have representation from DWP through the ACSSLs, both on the board itself and sometimes on subgroups—for example, in relation to safeguarding adults reviews or learning and development, which links back to the safeguarding training we were discussing earlier. All of that is positive, and there are examples of ACSSLs being positively connoted for the contribution they have made to safeguarding practice. It is not all doom and gloom by any stretch, and there are positive examples. We are going to review the memorandum of understanding in 2027—that is a jointly agreed priority. There is concern coming from DWP, as I understand it from meetings I have had with senior DWP leaders, about their capacity to respond. There are 136 safeguarding adults boards in England, and local government reorganisation is likely to increase that number to some degree. ACSSLs have to sit on safeguarding adults boards, on safeguarding children’s partnerships, as well as a variety of subgroups. There are conversations happening in individual areas about where ACSSLs can best make their contribution—whether that is in a full board meeting, where much of what might be discussed may be only tangentially relevant to DWP, and/or through subgroups and task-and-finish groups. Those are conversations that can really only be resolved locally, although we can provide some advice nationally about DWP’s contribution to adult safeguarding. There are concerns about capacity issues and concerns about stretch within DWP, but there is also positive engagement with safeguarding adults boards, which had begun before I appeared before the Committee last time and has continued.

Do you think there are any further improvements the Department could make?

There is always room for improvement. One should never stand still. We have touched on culture already, although all the ACSSLs I have had engagement with—both in England and in Scotland—understand adult safeguarding and are committed to it, but they are singleton voices or a small group of voices within a much larger organisation, whose culture we have already touched on. There is room for improvement in culture. There also needs to be improvement in recognising what vulnerability, or, in my language, an adult at risk, actually means, and everyone in DWP being very clear that if they have any sense that an adult might be at risk—for example, of financial abuse—they should refer to the local authority. I have not seen a steep increase in the number of safeguarding concerns being referred to local authorities, and I would expect there to be a steep increase, for the reasons Debbie outlined at the beginning of the meeting.

Thank you. Daphne, you shared concerns with us about poor quality and limited effectiveness of DWP safeguarding referrals. What is creating those challenges, and how could they be remedied?

Specifically with the migration, I do not get involved in safeguarding referrals directly, and I do not know too much about it. Staff who are doing them are not putting the correct information into the referrals, so I think it is very much a training issue. I also think the point is whether they have done enough, before they do the safeguarding referral, to get the person over the line. That would be a point as well. I accept that sometimes they do, but when they get to that stage, they have to put all the information in there. As what goes into the referrals is not my expertise, it is difficult for me to comment more on this.

I can tell you what needs to go into a safeguarding referral, and I have told all the ACSSLs I have had engagement with about what should go into a safeguarding referral. That is positive. All the ACSSLs have come together in information sessions with me, and quite possibly with others, about what the law requires in relation to adult safeguarding. In England, does the individual claimant appear to have care and support needs, irrespective of whether the local authority is actually meeting or assessing those needs, or whether they have set care and support needs? The definition of care and support needs in the care and support statutory guidance could be much clearer what the phrase “care and support needs” actually means—mental ill health, mental distress, learning disability, neurodiversity, substance misuse, acquired brain injury, physical disability, physical illness—because it is a very broad concept. That is not always understood in social care, let alone in DWP. Secondly, is the person experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect, including self-neglect? Is the person at risk of financial abuse, coercion or control, cuckooing and home invasion or other forms of exploitation? Is there any evidence that that may be happening? Thirdly, as a result of those care and support needs, is the person unable to protect themselves in the way that someone without those needs might be able to do? That is what should go into a safeguarding referral, and that is what the ACSSLs know. How far that knowledge permeates down into the rest of DWP is a major question mark. I can see Rick shaking his head.

On the safeguarding training that we referred to earlier—it is not mandatory, and I think it should be for all work coaches and case managers—I am also not certain whether the current safeguarding level 1 training covers everything you have just described, Michael. It is all very well the ACSSLs knowing about it. That is when it gets to a complex level and the DWP is aware that this person is vulnerable, but the work coaches in the jobcentre are the ones who need to spot that someone is at risk and make the safeguarding referral. When that is not happening, as Michael says, it is because there has not been an escalation. If they do not have the appropriate training, they will not do it. Again, I do not know what that level 1 training covers, but it ought to be mandatory training for all. I find it unbelievable that all customer-facing DWP staff do not have to complete safeguarding level 1 training, when they are without doubt dealing with adults at risk and should have that.

It is important to be curious. What we know from safeguarding adults reviews is that professional curiosity is very often found to be a shortcoming. We need people in contact centres and on front desks to be curious about what they are seeing and hearing, in order to answer the question, “Is this person potentially at risk of abuse or neglect, including self-neglect?” There needs to be a level of curiosity. When you are under pressure, and you have only a few minutes with each person—and this is the same in primary care with GPs as it is in DWP, where you are under pressure and have six or 10 minutes to go through a process—that puts an enormous strain on curiosity. Curiosity is fundamental in recognising whether somebody is at risk.

There is another layer to this, which is that safeguarding only applies to people where there is someone to notice, where they are getting support. There is a whole section of people who are under the radar, where there is no one to say they are at risk. When people do come to organisations like ours, the waiting lists are very long. It is three to four months at citizens advice in Greater Manchester, for example, and services like Greater Manchester Law Centre do amazing work but are hugely oversubscribed—something like 10 to one. Getting support is extremely difficult, and a lot of people give up and fall further under the radar. They will never get a safeguarding report, and that is where the risk cohort lives. That is where the people who have died have come from. Social care is overwhelmed with safeguarding reports as it is—there is not very much room for extra safeguarding reports, and people are not being noticed as needing one. One way to improve matters would be, as others have said, for DWP to take a much more proactive and mandatory part in safeguarding. We had those years when we had even the Secretary of State saying they do not believe they have a duty of safeguarding. That is wrong. DWP needs to lead on safeguarding and synchronise their standards and levels, with health and social care, as others have said, including on basic things like the accessible information standard. By the way, the DWP is incredibly bad when you ask them to communicate with you in a way that is accessible. I just talked about the universal credit journal. People themselves should be able to fill in their access needs, not hope that a work coach can do it. We also know that—certainly in parts of Greater Manchester—there are work coaches with over 200 clients, and they cannot manage. The PCS has done a report on this. The workload on work coaches, even for those who are very good, is not manageable

Thank you. I have one more question for Michael on multi-agency work. How would you compare the effectiveness of equivalent legislation in the devolved nations with the Care Act?

I should say at the outset that I am not responsible for the adult protection committee convening in Scotland, but I do have contact with adult protection conveners there, and I have had contact with ACSSLs in Scotland. The Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007—the Act that sets out adult protection arrangements in Scotland, so the equivalent of the 2014 Care Act—is, in my view, stronger than the Care Act in a number of respects, though weaker in one respect. It is stronger in the sense that it outlines adult protection, as Scotland calls it—adult protection duties simply in relation to an adult at risk. There is no follow-on, which we have in England, whereby a person must also have care and support needs in order to qualify for adult safeguarding. While most claimants in England may well have care and support needs—using the expansive definition I gave earlier—not every claimant will appear to have such needs. In those cases, where does safeguarding happen? Some local authorities and safeguarding adults boards in England have distinguished between safeguarding with a capital S, and safeguarding with a small s, which is outside of section 42 of the Care Act. They have put in place procedures for partner agencies to follow in England in relation to safeguarding for people who appear not to have care and support needs. In Scotland, the focus is on adults at risk. Scotland also has an adult safeguarding power of entry and protection order, which is not often used but available and occasionally useful, particularly where a third party is preventing access to an adult at risk. We know that some claimants are at risk of financial abuse, coercion and control, and undue influence, and it can be very difficult for any practitioner—adult safeguarding or otherwise—to gain sufficient access and then to decide whether any of the protection orders that exist in Scotland should be implemented. We do not have that system in England. Wales has an adult safeguarding power of entry but not the additional protection orders, which means you might be able to get in and see someone but cannot necessarily take effective action to safeguard them. The one area where the Scottish arrangements for adult protection are weaker, in my view, is that there is no mandatory duty to conduct safeguarding adults reviews in the way that section 44 of the Care Act outlines both a mandatory and a discretionary duty to undertake safeguarding reviews in England, and there is comparable legislation in Wales. That goes back to something we touched on earlier only in passing: we know that DWP conducts serious incident reviews, but I do not get sight of those, and clearly Daphne, Caroline and Rick do not either. There is a lack of transparency about what DWP is learning from these reviews. I have a mandate as a safeguarding adults board chair to seek assurance, but how can I seek and obtain that assurance if I cannot see how an agency—DWP in this case—is learning from serious incidents? That may shed light, for example, on culture change. You have all raised questions about culture change, and the evidence or otherwise of culture change might reside in part in those serious incident reviews, if we could have access to them.

We sent copies of the DWP’s report from 2022—I think John Pring reported on it—to every MP, so there is no excuse if MPs have not read it. Please read it. This 2022 report talked about the cumulative effect of multiple errors or inaction on benefit claims causing situations, in their words, to “spiral out of control” for vulnerable customers, even leading to their deaths. The DWP admitted in its own internal report that it had become unintentionally desensitised to the failures, or the processes of non-compliance, and to the damage they cause. DWP is self-aware to an extent, but it keeps these reports secret. I know people who have done research that has never seen the light of day. That ties into the culture change point, but also leadership on that and transparency and accountability. On the system of prevention of future deaths, in its internal reviews—as you said in your report—DWP is marking its own homework at the moment. All the different systems they have are internal. Would we accept that from most other public bodies? The only organisations that get that level of secrecy and control are the intelligence services—and, by the way, it has similar levels of surveillance now that it is spying on our bank accounts. DWP is so out of step with the level of scrutiny applied to any other public body.

I am happy to start on this. One of the things that I think has been reported to this Committee, as part of a separate report that you did around pathfinder work—our understanding is that it is part of that pathfinder work—is that there are workstreams that are meant to be being taken forward to take a different approach to conditionality. This then links through to, hopefully, preventing the need to sanction people. Our understanding, based on what we know about those workstreams, is that this is about looking at what can be done within the flexibility of existing roles. It comes back to what Michael and Daphne were saying earlier about discretion around easements, for example, or around what goes into people’s claimant commitments, and the extent to which that is being exercised in practice by work coaches. Some of that was about coming back to the original claimant commitment when you are agreeing with somebody at the beginning about the different activities that people would potentially need to undertake. That would have less of an immediate focus on putting in mandatory and specific conditions for people. Under the current legislation, if someone has a mandatory requirement that they then fail to meet, you must sanction them. What that leads to in practice is a lot of people being sanctioned for first-time, often very minor things—such as missing an interview because a bus did not come, for example—leading to quite severe consequences for people. Instead, they could be trying to take more of a voluntary approach initially, with the ability to escalate towards mandatory conditions. That is essentially a way of getting around the restrictions of the current regime, which says that you have to sanction for first-time failures, to instead have a degree of flexibility within that. It would be helpful for this Committee to clarify with DWP that that is what is happening. Our experience when we have engaged at different levels is that it is not always clear that that is exactly what is happening with the claimant commitment, or whether it is a slightly fluffier, more engaged approach. I think the specifics matter with that. Is there a planned approach to using more voluntary commitments at the outset, with a staged approach, so that you are not sanctioning people for first-time, minor reasons, and instead taking a more escalated approach to things? We also highlighted—in work we did with Central England Law Centre, which has provided a lot of dedicated support for individuals—problems with the checks and balances in the sanctioning process itself. Currently, that back load holds a great deal of the opportunities for scrutiny. One of the things we saw through that case load is that the majority of sanctions are overturned on appeal: 86% of people who made it through to that stage had their sanctions overturned. These were sanctions that should never have been put in place in the first instance. One of our concerns on the process for imposing a sanction is that, before a sanction is imposed, there should be an opportunity for people to provide an explanation as to why, for example, they were not able to attend an interview. That currently happens through a universal credit journal message, which does not ask or invite a lot of additional information from people. It is often potentially missed, and, for example, if you missed it because you were in a period of crisis in a hospital, you are also not going to be picking up your message to see that good reason message. There is also no direct contact between the individual and the decision maker around whether you are sanctioned. The decision about whether to sanction somebody is purely dependent on factors like what the work coach filters up, or what is on somebody’s file. We have been talking about the fact that the file contents are not going to be comprehensive in terms of what is going on with somebody’s life, either generally or in relation to that specific incident. In contrast, if you manage to get all the way through to an appeal, you are with a tribunal judge, you are able to explain things in more detail and set that situation out, whereas there is no opportunity to do that at an earlier stage. Also, specifically, the pre-referral checks should happen when a safeguarding risk is flagged on somebody’s file. There is not a lot of transparency externally about how those function and how well those are functioning, either. On the outside you do not necessarily know whether that has happened or how effective it has been. It might be helpful to pick up with DWP an understanding of how it monitors the effectiveness of those things. We have never seen the internal measures. Do those effectively pick up people? Again, that depends on the information that might be on a case file. There is no opportunity to share things. The last thing I want to say is that’s a lot on procedure and process. I do not want the takeaway to be that if you make some tweaks in the process, you can make the safeguarding risks and the problems with the sanctions regime go away. The key issue with sanctioning is partly to do with the disproportionate severity with which people are sanctioned. Like I say, currently that is often for first-time, relatively minor failings, and often we know should not have been the case at all because a lot of them get overturned, ultimately. It is 100% of somebody’s standard allowance, which is a huge, sudden and severe income shock for people for minor things, even if those minor things might not even have happened, but for minor failings. You cannot safeguard and process-check your way out of that serious risk. That is partly driven by, essentially, what you were talking about before: the difference between stuff that is governed by the framework as opposed to how people are applying the framework. That is one thing that is driven by the legal framework. Secondary legislation requires sanctions to be deducted at 100% of somebody’s standard allowance. If you get into a situation where you have to sanction somebody, no mechanism or opportunity in that can vary the rate you are deducting to take into account whether that will push somebody into destitution. That is the amount that you will have to sanction somebody. Potentially, people can ask for hardship payments, which is where you essentially get a loan of 60%. You cannot get a hardship payment until you have met what is called a compliance condition. We found with the case load at Central England Law Centre was that a lot of what was driving the length of the sanction, and so the total amount that people were being sanctioned, was the period running up to that compliance period. Difficulties around making replacement interviews happen—maybe due to admin issues or finding time—were driving a lot of the period of the sanction. You would not get a hardship payment to cover that period. There are some tricky bits about getting a hardship payment, and we know that a lot of people are put off taking that hardship payment because it will then be a loan that they have to repay. It is a less immediately severe consequence of 100%, but it is longer term—less severe but still a difficult financial situation for people to be in to pay that back. The key point with that is that, yes, lots of things could be done to improve the process and the procedures—that is important and should happen—but the disproportionate severity of things is the key harm and has to be addressed. The last thing is that a helpful response to this Committee’s “Reforming Jobcentres” inquiry set out some of the background about what we understand DWP to be doing in this area. It would be helpful to have more specific detail about some of those things and what exactly the actions are. There is a reference in there to looking at different policies. It would be good to know exactly what policies are within scope. For example, does it include the process at the beginning about a good reason and understanding the context in which somebody was sanctioned? Also, in terms of the workstreams that are being taken forward as part of the pathfinders work, we need greater clarity about what exactly is happening with that. Again, coming back to the claimant commitment, is it a general changing of the vibe or is it specifically about more voluntary use of commitments? Then, coming back to what I was saying at the beginning, we need real clarity about how things are being evaluated. What does success look like with this? What is the current status of who is being sanctioned? How much are they being sanctioned? How are you monitoring whether there has been a shift in the dial in terms of how that is happening in practice?

I am happy to go next. I will start by saying I agree with everything Caroline said and so, again, I will not repeat it. The statistics bear out that not much has changed, because the proportion of people being sanctioned has gone slightly downward, but very slightly. Some pathfinders went into a few little jobcentres, and there was talk about what would help somebody get a job, for example, rather than saying somebody has to look for a job for 35 hours a week, which is not realistic. What will help them move to something that they can and want to do? There are all the things that need changing in the regulations, as Caroline says, but there is some stuff that they can do. Someone sent me a recent case study. Somebody had been left with no income at all. All their utilities had been disconnected. They had no phone credit or anything. The work coach had asked them to provide a fit note, but, because the person had not managed to get a fit note, they would not put any easements in place. The person clearly had health problems. He was very unwell and they refused to put easements in place. The adviser got put in touch through a social work referral and managed to escalate things a bit with the partnership manager, and so got the sanction withdrawn and got him a fit note. Then his fit note had a gap because it was left to his responsibility to get on—a two-day gap—and they called him in for an interview, even though there was a flag about his vulnerability and him being at risk, and a banner saying, “No face-to-face interviews”. They called him in for a face-to-face interview, which then triggered the whole process again. That is a specific example. That it is about the culture again. I spoke to somebody who had been in a pathways place, and they said that it is one of the most difficult things. It has been going on for so long, changing work coaches and things. “You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to do the other”. Think. Talk to the person. “What easements are appropriate? What do you need?” More than 90% are for failing to turn up at an appointment. It is not that you have not been doing anything; you have just missed an appointment. If you turned up late at work, you would not have your salary docked for a month—it is so disproportionate. Sometimes it is just that they are late. It is not even that they have not made it. Even if they have not made it, these are at-risk people. Anything can crop up that makes them not attend an appointment. To suddenly do something like that for something so minor it is unbelievably disproportionate. As I say, the statistics bear it out. It is not changing. It is still more than 90% for failing to attend. That is all they have done. They have just missed an appointment. We have all done that in our lives, I am sure, perhaps without phoning first. Maybe this person did not have any credit on his phone because it had all gone because he had been sanctioned, which then made it very difficult to comply because he had no money to do all the things that he was supposed to do to comply. It is set up for failure. Once you are sanctioned, you get into that spiral because then you cannot do the things you need to do to comply because you have no money. You cannot pay for the bus to get to your interview or whatever. How are you going to bring that sanction to an end? You can never get there.

I have two quick things, if I may, to reinforce everything that has been said just now. The first is that I do not know the current state of progress in all the task-and-finish activity that DWP might be undertaking. As I said much earlier, the initial impetus and initial involvement has scaled off, maybe because of the size of the task that they feel they have. Listening to the stories and going back to the safeguarding adults reviews, which prompted the memorandum of understanding that we have initially used in Nottingham and elsewhere, it is assumed that people are unwilling, whereas the vast majority of claimants have care and support needs that will, at times, render them unable rather than unwilling to meet the expectations of DWP. We need DWP culturally to understand that. DWP needs to engage with people, not simply to expect people to engage with them. We need to flip because many people are unable rather than unwilling. The assumption that they are unwilling means that they lose what they need to live. I cannot understand how, in a civilised society, from a social justice point of view, we do that.

It is like incentivising an astronaut by cutting off their air supply. It is not a smart way to do things. In Greater Manchester—I will have to mention a certain person—Andy Burnham did engage well with us, with the New Economics Foundation on its “Terms of Engagement” report, and with Tom Pollard, who is now back at Mind. We are pushing for the Live Well scheme in Manchester to be positive and constructive, not taking this penalising, sanction-using approach. I hope that we are getting closer to that. Nationally, that would be the thing to do. As people have said, the law is inflexible on sanctions. It fundamentally needs changes. In principle, we do not think that a social security system should have the capability of starving people. That is why food banks exist, largely. We had the Right to Food Commission. We held that event with the commission earlier this week. Sanctions are, basically, fuel for people having to find ways to survive elsewhere. If they did remain part of the system, they should have so much more process around them that stops them being used in this—I have to say—arbitrary and extremely punitive and damaging way. It is a social security system. It should not be taking away what people need to live.

We are getting a little bit tight on time, so shorter answers would be fantastic. Caroline, this is for you in particular. We have been talking about sanctions. The Public Law Project’s research found that a high proportion of sanctions cases, when challenged, were resolved in favour of the claimant. Why are so many being overturned? Could something be done about it?

I note as well that that project was joint with the Central England Law Centre. Some of what could be done about it is coming back to what I was saying before about the process, so I will not repeat that, but it is necessarily about how you might have a better focus on understanding the circumstances earlier on. Why might somebody have missed something? Was that a fair condition to have had in the first place? Have much more direct contact perhaps between the decision maker and the claimant to understand that situation. Then go even further upstream to the points about what conditions are set for people in the first place and whether easements should be in place so that people are not sanctioned. Picking up on some of the stuff that we have been seeing in terms of the reasons why people were having things overturned, usually the reason that they missed the interview, for example, was due to things that were perhaps outside of their control, things that are a consequence of poverty—for example, not having enough money for fuel for your car to be able to get to the jobcentre. A common one that we had was about digital exclusion. It was not necessarily that people did not have a device, but cheap phones break down and something had gone wrong with it. A lot of interviews now are over the phone, which can be a good thing for people, but it also means it is quite easy to miss something. You cannot easily phone back DWP. Other situations were when people were in unexpected health crises, ending up in hospital. Likewise, in a lot of these situations, the same reason you get sanctioned is the same reason it is then hard to engage with the process to advocate why you should not have been sanctioned. Your ability to provide a good reason is the same if you have a language barrier or if you were in a health crisis or other stuff was going on. That was then also the same reason it was then hard to engage with that process. The last thing I wanted to say was about that high overturn rate. Those appeals were overturned largely because dedicated advice support was in place to advise people on their rights and support people through that process. Central England Law Centre did a brilliant job with that. That was with individual grant funding that was available. That grant funding would not normally be there. Individuals would not necessarily always—and would not in lots of parts of the country—have access to that advice and support to know they have the ability to challenge it and then to be supported through that process, particularly the appeal hearing. There is also something about access and availability of advice and people knowing what their rights are. You can challenge a sanction at any time. That is not well known and is often not well communicated from DWP.

I have a more general question. In our report, the Committee made recommendations for improving accessibility of information. The DWP felt that there was a danger of overloading people with information. Does anyone have any reflections on that? How could we get the balance right? Rick, you have your hand up.

Giving accessible information and overloading with information are different. It is using an excuse there about its own processes because often you will get a decision letter. By the way, the fear of the envelope is very real and terrifying for people. People do not quite understand the trauma of that. You will get a decision letter. It can be four pages, on incredibly bad quality paper, by the way. I do not know where DWP gets it from, but my God! The essential information is hidden probably somewhere on page 2 of a four-page letter. It can be done in one page. That is not even the same as accessible information, because we are talking about easy read. We are talking about British Sign Language. People are persistently struggling to get their access needs met. I go back to the point Daphne made about the journal. Across the whole system, disabled people should be able to fill in a box electronically on a paper form or in a phone call. They should be asked, “What are your access needs?” Those should be recorded and respected, which is also about not having to restate them every time. It is like they know, “To communicate with this person, we use easy read”, or “To communicate with this person, we use Braille”. They are not up to speed on that at all. They are slightly different issues. Yes, they do overload people with information, but that is their own cultural addiction to long, boring letters that do not give the information up front.

I have a specific answer on BSL users, because I have been having regular meetings with the DWP about it. It is not up to standard at all. It is assumed that BSL users can use text relay, but that requires a certain level of English, which is not their first language, and it is not appropriate. It is assumed that BSL interpreters work as well over video as they do face to face, which they do not because seeing somebody on a flat screen is not the same for sign language as seeing a 3D thing. I do not know whether it is a lack of interpreters. Someone I am working with at the moment has had about six attempts for a health assessment, and the interpreter has not turned up or something has gone wrong. As a result, they are losing their ESA because they are getting to the end of the year that they can have the benefit as they have not been assessed. They do not yet have their support component to keep it because it is contributory ESA. They have a complete inability. The journal, phone calls and everything else are not designed for BSL users, and there does not seem to be any understanding of how communications are made. They will still send letters, but letters are no good if you cannot read English. Again, the officials I am working with in the accessibility unit are trying hard, but they are hitting a brick wall. The DWP is not meeting its Equality Act requirements for BSL users at all. I want to flag up that specific case.

I am aware of two safeguarding adults reviews in relation to BSL issues, not just involving DWP but more generally, and a failure to recognise that that is a language. We need to engage people in the languages that they use. As Daphne said also, there are assumptions about literacy here.

Following the Sayce review into carer’s allowance, has the Department taken on board challenges relating to how it communicates expectations with claimants and the possible consequences of when it does so badly? That is probably for you, Daphne.

It would be helpful. I believe they have done new letters, but we have asked several times to see what the new letters look like and I have not yet seen them, so I cannot comment on whether their new letters are better than the old letters. Apparently, they are doing something about it. I have a lot of concerns about how they are implementing. They supposedly accepted the majority of the recommendations, but for the cases that they are reassessing, they are continuing to recover pending reassessment. Why are they not pausing pending reassessment and then, if money still needs to be recovered, maybe reinstating it? Why are they not looking more broadly at waivers? Most of these examples are people who have been providing 35 hours of care for their £80 a week. Maybe they went slightly over the earnings limit and maybe the overpayment is genuine. It is a cliff edge. The cases there have a lot of sympathy. Why are they not looking? They have discretion to waive. They do not have to recover. The case of K, which was a Public Law Project case, made it clear that the DWP must exercise its discretion. It does not have to wait for the person to ask for it. It could be making proactive inquiries of those people, but it isn’t. It is reviewing those 200,000, but only those ones where perhaps the guidance was misapplied on the averaging of earnings that will have them written off. There does not seem to be any culpability about how things are done. DWP did not look at its verify earnings and pensions—or VEP—alerts. It could have noticed the overpayments earlier. It could have done something about it. These people who do not have a lot of money have ended up with a big overpayment, maybe cannot afford to care anymore, and then the costs to the state are huge. Why is it not actively applying the waiver? Why is it not going to all the people and saying, “If recovery will be difficult for you, let us know. Tell us why.” Make it easy for people to ask for the waiver and exercise discretion fairly. That is what I would say on that.

As someone who has been on carer’s allowance in the past when I cared for my mother, all the additional rules and stuff around it are not helpful. You are keeping someone alive, often a very close loved one. There is not a lot of extra capacity to be doing bureaucracy and bank calculations. Use human common sense. The rules need to be changed. Carers save this country billions of pounds. The rate of carer’s allowance amounts to less than £2 an hour, effectively. Carers should be celebrated and supported. It should be a lot more money, by the way, instead of them being fined and having to make repayments. It is absolutely iniquitous.

Caroline, do you want to say anything about the case that was just referred to?

Only to note that it is important to have the focus on carer’s allowance with the issue of the cliff edge. I also note a lot of issues with overpayments and the lack of accessibility of waiver in the context of universal credit overpayments. Unlike carer’s allowance, they can recover official error overpayments. They are caused by DWP’s mistakes, not at all by the individual. To emphasise Daphne’s point about the inaccessibility of waivers and the reluctance to grant waivers, certainly in a universal credit context, the number of waivers issued is vanishingly small. Daphne mentioned the case that the Public Law Project was involved with, which essentially said that, in a lot of these circumstances, people should have a legitimate expectation of a waiver, but for people to force that, they need to go through judicial review, which is not accessible for most people. I would say, in addition to the carer’s allowance recommendations, there is a lot of crossover with things that should also be learned about universal credit, official error, general overpayment recovery and, across the board, better accessibility of waivers and a greater willingness to use them on the part of DWP

I have one more little point on carer’s allowance. With the interaction of carer’s allowance and universal credit, if someone were on universal credit when they were overpaid the carer’s allowance, they would have universal credit in place of that carer’s allowance. Because the two systems do not talk to each other, there is a risk that some of those carer’s allowance overpayments are not net overpayments because they should have had universal credit instead. I am not confident that the DWP has picked up on all those cases. It used to be, when it was all the legacy system, that carer’s allowance and ESA would offset automatically, but universal credit sits outside the system and cannot talk to the rest of the benefits system. There is a real risk for some of them, if they were on universal credit for any period of their overpayment, that it has been miscalculated. I am not sure that that is being picked up on effectively either.

With the way carer’s allowance works under universal credit as opposed to ESA, it seems to make an assumption that disabled people cannot also be carers. You basically have to choose one or the other, which is, frankly, nonsense.

Thanks, Rick—that is fantastic. I have one more question, and it relates to what Rick said about delays in access to advice support. You talked about citizens advice and so on. It is true to say that certain parts are advice deserts. Would you like to comment on what that means in areas where people do not have access to such advice and support? We have talked about sanctions, how health assessments are notorious, and how important it is for the success of those to get advice, support with applications and so on. We have two minutes.

They will not be able to exercise their rights, but we have big concerns about the claim management companies that are appearing everywhere—those no win, no fee ones, typically for disability benefits. They are basically saying, “We will help you get a disability benefit, but we will take 35 or 40% of any money that we get you.” If it is a case that goes to appeal because tribunals are taking a long time at the moment, the back pay could be in the region of £5,000 to £10,000, and so those claims management companies are taking thousands of pounds for preparing a case for appeal. That might only be literally a few hours’ work, and that is money that belongs to the claimant. They vary. NAWRA is doing some research into them at the moment and trying to gather information. Some of them are unethical and are charging huge amounts of money. They are taking advantage of the fact that people cannot access their rights and get advice. That is a huge concern. NAWRA is pushing for advice to be a statutory duty so that people everywhere can get access to free independent advice. That is a human right for them, particularly for people at risk.

Michael, very briefly?

One sentence. Statutory right to advocacy.

Rick?

Absolutely that. Just to say quickly, from the report on sanctions, the overturn rate we talked about was 84%. PIP overturns were 70% to 75%. This tells you that the DWP is making terrible decisions. People need support to fight that because the system needs to change, but that will take time. Where people do not get support, they get subject to a bad decision.

We are just on time. I am pleased that you were able to join us Rick, Michael, Daphne and Caroline, and thank you so much for all the evidence that you were able to share with us.