26 September 2008
Purnell urges welfare conditionality
The work and pensions secretary has insisted that a toughening of access to the welfare system will improve social justice, as charities warned that the most vulnerable people still faced major barriers to finding employment.
James Purnell told a Citizens Advice fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Manchester that 'conditionality is the ally of social justice'. Increasing the conditions to be met to receive benefit would encourage people to find work, he said.
'We are trying to change the welfare system, so there are the right obligations for people not to be trapped on benefits that don't create the right incentives and don't provide the right support.'
The benefits system is seen as one way the government can meet its target of eliminating child poverty by 2020, and Purnell said benefit levels would continue to become more generous.
As Prime Minister Gordon Brown was announcing plans to give a legal basis to the child poverty target by 2020, and for free childcare for two-year-olds to be extended to all families, Citizens Advice produced a report setting out five key barriers facing lone parents in finding work.
Due to be released next month, it called for a welfare and poverty commission to be established. The report, Barriers to work: lone parents and the challenges of working, said a confusing system of benefits, tax and tax credits should be examined, looking at how to 'minimise complexity and ensure that work pays'.
Teresa Perchard, CA's director of policy, said that a lack of flexibility in jobs, problems finding childcare, a lack of personalised support, extra costs incurred, such as school meals and travel when starting work, were all barriers that faced unemployed lone parents.
'A more transitional approach, where people can work more and keep more, would be more encouraging and less disciplinarian.'
Diana Lightfoot from United Response, a charity that helps adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems to develop skills and find employment, said an inflexible system that did not allow those with learning difficulties to work and still receive benefits was a major barrier.
Public service reform must 'look at the demand side'
Labour must justify the need for public service reform and remove a situation where 'numerous agencies and bureaucracies' were trying to do the same thing, a health minister has said.
Care services minister Ivan Lewis said: 'We need a much clearer understanding of what a smart state needs to be… It seems to me that if we are going to radically reform public services you have also got to look at the demand side.'
Speaking at an Institute for Public Policy Research event on Labour's public service policy on September 22, Lewis said reform had to make a 'reality of personalisation' by giving service users the opportunity to be involved, but also a sense of power and ownership.
Lewis said there should be 'no artificial barriers' to third and private sector organisations providing services, but their involvement should be based on whether they could 'deliver outcomes that are better then state institutions'.
He attributed a 'morale problem' among staff in parts of the public sector to local leadership, adding that staff opinions often varied between neighbouring organisations. 'There is an issue around the quality of public sector management and leadership,'
he said.
The Work Foundation released a report, Public value: the next steps in public service reform, at the conference, looking at a 'public value' approach to reform, defined as a way of 'securing greater democratic legitimacy for the objectives of public services and a means of improving the quality of decision-making'.
Devolve to cope with downturn, says Healey
Whitehall must press ahead with devolving powers to allow local areas the freedom to respond to economic challenges, local government minister John Healey has urged.
Speaking at a fringe event held by the Centre for Cities think-tank and the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce on September 23, Healey said the economic downturn made 'the imperative for greater devolution more pressing'.
He added: 'The risk in a downturn is that the response is caution, but that would be the wrong response. The case for going further needs to be made much more strongly as the economic conditions tighten.'
However, he admitted that this would 'test the tolerance of Whitehall for variation across the country'. Job Centre Plus could not simply offer the same service in Manchester as it did in Maidenhead, he added.
At the event, Labour leader of Manchester City Council Sir Richard Leese warned that there continued to be 'enormous resistance' in parts of Whitehall to more local decision-making. 'We are making progress, but in some key areas there is a way to go,' he said.
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