Welfare Reform Bill

I strongly support this amendment, which will not surprise the Minister since we have spoken about training on a number of occasions in relation to the other welfare reform Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, would have wished to contribute to this debate, but she is heavily involved in the Chamber on the Coroners and Justice Bill. I know that she would wish noble Lords to be aware of her commitment to this amendment. Likewise, I am very committed to this amendment. It is absolutely essential that levels of competency should be clearly specified for these crucial staff. When you look at the proposed new subsections under this amendment, the enormity of the job that these people are being expected to perform becomes clear. These front-line staff would need to have a detailed understanding of how to deal with people with a multitude of different mental health fluctuating disorders and other disorders, a detailed understanding of how to deal with people dependent on drugs and a detailed understanding of the childcare needs of a variety of different children, including those with and without disabilities and all the rest of it. From my small perspective, I am very conscious that personal advisers on the front line of jobcentres do not have the understanding that they need to deal effectively with people with mental health problems. They simply do not have those skills and they tell us that they do not. It is profoundly important that there is clarity about the levels of competency that these people need in all these different areas. I would put a plea to the Minister that these levels of competency should be set out. If an office cannot show that the staff have those levels of competency for the various client groups, the conditionality clauses should not come into effect. If you sanction claimants—or customers, as Ministers like to call them—when staff are swimming around and do not understand what they are doing, the likelihood of gross injustice is very high. Again, I strongly support this amendment and I hope that the Minister does so too.