Welfare Reform Bill

I hope noble Lords will allow me to go into a little detail in response to our debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, for tabling this amendment, which proposes a claimants’ charter, and all noble Lords who have spoken to it: my noble friend Lady Turner, the noble Lords, Lord Northbourne and Lord Taylor, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I welcome the spirit of this amendment and the values behind it, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has set out. Noble Lords may not be surprised to hear that I do not believe that the amendment is the best way to achieve the objectives that all noble Lords seek. The effects of the amendment would be twofold. It would require the department to have a claimants’ charter that sets out customers’ rights and responsibilities under the Bill. It would also establish a new employment services ombudsman to consider disputes between claimants and the department or its delivery partners. As I have said, we agree with the underlying sentiment of the amendment, which aims to ensure that individuals understand the support that the department will provide them, what is expected of them in return—as my noble friend Lady Turner has said—and their rights of redress, which are very important, if the department does not meet its obligations. Indeed, the previous Secretary of State met the chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee and representatives of a number of groups, including Gingerbread, the Disability Alliance, Citizens Advice and the Child Poverty Action Group, to discuss how we can best meet these objectives. Officials have since met stakeholder groups twice to go into the detail of how we might address their concerns. The suggestion of a charter is interesting and we have some sympathy for it. Work is already advanced in the development of a DWP customer charter of service standards to cover all DWP customers. This is based on what customers have told us is important to them. It might be a good idea to distribute this work to Members of the Committee so that they can see what kind of charter we have in mind. The charter reflects four themes that were identified as important drivers of the DWP’s customer experience. The first theme is the right treatment. We want to ensure that it delivers the best possible customer experience by listening carefully, offering good advice and treating our customers with respect. The second theme is the right result. We want to ensure that our customers receive the right benefit on time. We also want to help those who can move into employment to do so, rather than spend a life on benefits. The third theme is being on time. We want to improve processes, using the experience and the ideas of those who deliver and use them. We will give customers a good idea of how long things will take and keep them informed all the way along their journey. The fourth theme is easy access. By making systems more straightforward and helping customers to access help through self-service routes such as the internet, we will free up time to devote to customers who need our help the most. These are aspirational goals on which the department is working as part of its strategic goal to be an exemplar of customer service delivery. Although detailed service standards vary according to operational needs, the charter will provide a common framework to deliver a consistent approach in our customer communications on service standards. Noble Lords might ask why, if we are planning a charter anyway, we do not accept the amendment. First—I appreciate that this is a technical point—the scope of the amendment is limited to the provisions of the Bill. As I have said, we plan to introduce a customer charter for all DWP customers. We believe that creating a similar charter for customers affected only by the provisions of the Bill would create unnecessary complexity and prove difficult to administer in practice as it would, in effect, exclude other key customer groups. A further issue is that by legislating for a charter, we may limit our ability to respond to changing circumstances and our ongoing discussion with stakeholder groups. Claimants’ needs change; policy moves on; aspects of law become irrelevant; and interest groups come up with new ideas on how to support our customers. We need to be able to respond to those developments quickly, without making changes to legislation. By not being bound by legislation, our approach to developing the DWP customer charter is more flexible and more easily amendable in the light of customer experience.