The Guardian view on welfare reform: In Dire Straits

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/19/guardian-view-welfare-reform-in-dire-straits

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Imagine for a moment that Iain Duncan Smith had a bureaucrat breathing down his neck – the sort of stickler that goes through a jobseeker’s claimant commitment, checking that he has done everything he promised. Put out of mind successes in notching up flattering column inches, and trying arguments with the bishops about the Christian approach to the poor. For if there were a decision to be made on sanctioning a secretary of state’s salary, it would surely be proper to judge him only against the specific undertakings he had made. With universal credit rolling out, and new ideas on overweight claimants whizzing around, this is an apposite week to make the assessment.

Let us consider, first, incapacity benefits, now rebadged as employment and support allowance, where the last Conservative manifesto was explicit about how the caseload would be reduced. The pledge was to “reassess all current claimants of incapacity benefit”, with “those found fit for work will be transferred on to jobseeker’s allowance”. So how did that turn out? Well, for a time the government – with the help of its contractors, Atos – stuck doggedly to the plan of rushed reassessments all round. There were soon tales of claimants dying after having had money withdrawn, but the real administrative problem was the explosion of appeals, which very often succeeded because many medical problems were being routinely ignored at the earlier stage.

Official reports, by Malcolm Harrington, pleaded for refinements and pauses for thought. But Mr Duncan Smith pressed on regardless, until things got so critical that his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice insisted that something be done for fear of gumming up the tribunal service as a whole. At this point came a screeching handbrake turn. The rate of reassessment was slowed, the majority of cases were now shunted on to the leave-to-languish “support” category, which was initially supposed to cover only the most severely disabled. To cap it all Atos wearied of the unflattering chaos, and walked away. The result? The caseload, which had been tending to decline since the first reforms a decade ago, began to rise again. Despite the buoyant jobs market, this week’s jobs figures recorded a rise in “inactivity”, suggesting that the drift is now from proactive jobseeking to passivity, precisely the opposite of that manifesto pledge.

The next action point promised was Mr Duncan Smith’s personal passion – the universal credit. His faith-based claims that he could iron out every perversity of social security were never believed by the experts, who cautioned that he would achieve a modest rationalisation at best, and even that only if he could overcome the thorny technical problems involved in processing the 1.6 million relevant changes in family circumstances that take place every month. These problems haven’t been mastered, and the department has all but conceded to the National Audit Office that this week’s so-called accelerated roll-out would not help with getting on top of them. The programme continues to duck all but the most straightforward cases, and the election day caseload will be 95% down on what had been hoped for.

In sum, real welfare reform – as distinct from very real welfare cuts – has not occurred. As we come towards what must, surely, be the end of Mr Duncan Smith’s five-year tenure in office, the debate is still characterised by the sort of campaigning slogans associated with opposition. This week the Conservatives have signalled that they will carry on in the same vein if they win again. David Cameron put his name to a work-for-your-welfare scheme, even though a DWP pilot had recently established that, while this may succeed in bullying some off the benefit rolls, it has no effect on unemployment. Hours before that, his press operation had secured “Oi! Fatty” headlines about obese claimants, with an announcement that turned out to involve the reheating of old powers to deal, principally, with drug addicts and alcoholics. The coalition itself, while in calmer mood, had previously repealed these same powers for the very good reason that they didn’t work.

Mr Duncan Smith’s department is in clear breach of commitments it has given, and the sanction is upheld.