Welfare Reform Bill
4:00 pm
Fiona Weir: From our experience of working with single parents, we feel quite strongly that the vast majority want to work; in fact, nine out of 10 say that they want to work when it is right for their family. Usually, when you unpick that a bit, there are very good reasons behind their choices on work, and 40 per cent. of lone parents with children under seven are already in work. Those who are not working often have very good reasons: sometimes it is skills and confidence, sometimes a lack of access to the right child care, and sometimes a different set of barriers relating to the particular needs of the children. Fundamentally, what is required is a system that really provides support on skills training and building confidence, and good provision of child care, but that essentially leaves the decision about when it is right for the family for the single parent to return to work up to that single parent.
We have learned from our experience of what works that the relationship with Jobcentre Plus advisers can be extremely positive and supportive for helping a lone parent on the route to work. However, you take the element of trust out of that relationship if there is the potential to sanction that lone parent for not undertaking particular work-related activities. What constitutes a “work-related activity” in the Bill is wide open and it is also very unclear what would or would not constitute a reasonable sanction. You must consider the experience in the US. There, when an adviser has been given discretion to apply sanctions, an element of racial bias has often come into decisions, along with other issues. That all adds up to a system that, instead of working with the desire that many people have to get their children out of poverty and to get themselves back into work—because they want the adult company, to be a role model for their child and so on—somehow becomes very distrustful and based on a small number of people, rather than the vast majority of people who want to take the right route for their family. It then becomes a system that is working not with people, but against them.