UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Freud (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Thursday, 20 October 2011. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Welfare Reform Bill.
My Lords, I think that I should probably explain my assertion rather than give evidence for it. I used the word ““payment”” very carefully. There are real issues about when and how you collect the information and who you collect it from. I was trying to avoid some of this because it is complicated, but one of the most important things about universal credit, which we have discovered as we do the feedback, is that going on to universal credit is an opportunity to change attitudes. That is one of the findings that surprised us most. People think, ““This is what I used to do—now it is new, and I have to change my behaviours””. It is an opportunity. The question that we are looking at now—and this is just an example of the point that the noble Lord raises—is how we deliver that transformation best. What is the face-to-face element, and where should it be? What are the intermediaries that we can use? With regard to documents, we can use ID assurance through the post office and through the local Jobcentre Plus. We can use the local authorities. How we combine those tentacles out into the community and into our claimant base is clearly something that we are working extraordinarily hard on. We have a payment method, which we will put it together and simplify, and then regularise how we maintain knowledge of people, both on a database and on face-to-face contact. We need to know at what point you need the direct face-to-face contact and what point you go on to purely electronic means. You do not have to have a computer nowadays—you can have phone and apps and various things. As we move forward there is a real complexity, and if I start on this subject I will make noble Lords very fed up, but I do not want noble Lords to think that I am blind to this area.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
731 c155-6GC 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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