Campaigning

Department of Work & Pensions sets the rules for permitted work while on benefits. Some claimants are allowed to work their way off benefits progressively. Others are forced to transition from welfare to work in one go. We have recommended to DWP that:

• Government looks beyond its 80%-in-a-job aspiration. What about the 20%? Everyone accepts they can’t do a job. But perhaps some work is better than none? There could be targets for helping individuals into more limited economic activity. They can then have a personalised ramp into a job.
• DWP stop creating a monolithic IT infrastructure. If DWP were to act as a setter of standards (security, data transfer, user protection) to which any supplier of IT services could subscribe, they could see a flowering of competing technology visions for helping claimants.
• Rules about permitted work be made less ambiguous. They could recognise the value of escalating amounts of work as a way off benefits.

Social Care in the UK is being transformed. Government has committed £520m over 3 years to give individuals who receive care from the state their own budgets. Each individual then purchases exactly the services they want from whoever they wish.

This will be hard to achieve without a marketplace in which providers of Support offer their services and service users decide what they want to buy. But there are some unintended limits on how useful a marketplace can be. We have told the CQC:

• Self management should be encouraged. Expectations of care transformation rely heavily on Local Authorities providing “Help, Signposting & Support” to citizens wanting to arrange their care. Some clients will always need a phoneline to ring. But a growing number may want to sort out their own arrangements on the web. This should be specifically encouraged as the default offering.
• Foster independent brokerage. Brokers, who help service users sort out their requirements, are key to Personalised support. But many brokers will inevitably be commissioned salespeople for the big providers who will aim to lock the customer into their services rather than the wider marketplace. There needs to be standards of independence, as with financial advisors. An independent broker may cost more, but they will bring a much wider range of options.
• The “responsible person” rule needs to be changed. This stipulates that before a provider company can send a worker to an individual’s home a “responsible person” from the company must visit and do an assessment. At present the assessment is exclusive to that company, even though the service user will be paying for it. We believe the responsible person should issue a certificate that belongs to the individual. It’s what happens with opticians: get an eye test at Specsavers and the result belongs to you. You can use it to buy glasses at Vision Express or anywhere you want.

Policymakers could foster new marketplaces for the less well off across the economy. But the concept cuts across multiple government departments.

Our advice? It’s time for politicians to adopt a “modern markets for all” policy. They should look at the way marketplaces are evolving. Then they should ask: “do citizens have access to the best possible marketplace for everything they are able to sell?”

If the answer is No, policymakers need to look at whether there is anything they can do to change the situation. If all else fails, they may need to shape legislation to incentivise the private sector to fund a new system of markets. This is how national lotteries are created. See our page for central government.

• Fredericks Foundation