Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 18th meeting of the Welfare Reform Committee for 2015. Can I ask all those present to make sure that the mobile phones and other electronic devices are switched to silent and airplane mode? Thank you. Item 1 on the agenda is to take item 3 in private. Is that agreed? Yes. Item 2 on the agenda is to take a slight change to what had originally been planned. I welcome to the meeting Phil, who is a support worker for Diane. Unfortunately, Diane is unable to attend for family reasons, but Phil, her support worker from Inclusion Scotland, has agreed to read out her statement. I also welcome Jake and Donna. We do appreciate you taking the time to come to the meeting today. We realise that it can be quite a stressful experience for people who are not familiar with the parliamentary proceedings, but I can assure you that we will do everything that we can to make you feel comfortable today. If at any time you are not sure that something that is said is not clear, just stop me or anyone else in the committee so that you are able to play as full a part in the proceedings as you can. We do appreciate you coming along. Can we start by asking Phil if he will read out the statement from Diane? Is my understanding that you are just reading the statement and there are no questions or other comments? Is that correct? I am happy to take questions and answer them as best I can. I have been working with Diane quite closely throughout this. There may be questions that I can answer. I thank the committee for the opportunity to make sure that Diane's statement is hard. I have an email here from her, which I will read first, and I will go on to the statement. She says, I am really sorry, but having discussed things with my GP this morning, I have to take medical advice and say that the committee will just be too much for me tomorrow so I won't be attending. The problem with my statement is that it doesn't say that I claim employment support allowance and I am in the work-related activity group. At the time of the work capability assessment, a job centre plus adviser suggested that I ought to appeal that as I was so ill. Unfortunately, I did not feel able to do that as although I had been referred to the community mental health team by my GP, I had not at that time seen a psychiatrist and so did not feel able to appeal the outcome. I would of course be happy to answer any questions on any point in my statement by email or meeting later in private when I am less agitated and upset. I will move on to the statement. I have been on the work programme for some time. I applied for a paid internship opportunity because I was hopeful that it would be the next step in my journey towards recovering enough to go into more substantial long-term employment. I was giving up a volunteering placement, which had been running quite successfully to do this. I have a generalised anxiety disorder and once I get anxious about things, whatever the trigger and no matter how minor they might seem to other folks, this becomes increasingly difficult to manage and I engage in self-harming behaviours and have persistent, overwhelming suicidal thoughts, which are very difficult to cope with. I also get very upset and very agitated very easily, which is difficult for others to cope with, as you will have seen. It takes ages for me to regain some sort of equilibrium. To have made the move from doing voluntary work to sustaining this paid internship, I really needed things to go smoothly. I also have a vestibular condition, which means that I can be badly affected by certain types of movement and activity on computer screens. I wanted to get access to work help for equipment to help me with my vestibular condition, which means that I really need an especially wide screen so that I have enough space to have everything on screen rather than swapping between windows all the time. Unfortunately, my work programme adviser did not seem to really know anything about applying for access to work. With the support of the internship project staff, that would be me, I got an application started and was hoping for a quick assessment that would get the equipment that I needed. In order to make it easier for me, I attempted to authorise access to work to communicate with the support staff member from Inclusion Scotland on my behalf. However, it turned out that my claim could not be processed until the DWP reset a flag on my benefit claim, something to do with this being permitted work. My work programme adviser did not know about this and it took time for access to work to alert me to the situation. Because the application was not preceded, it did not process the third party permission form, so I had to deal with it directly. There had to be a process of the permitted work being approved by a different decision maker in the DWP, separately to both my work programme adviser and my Jobcentre Plus adviser. Communication between them all did not go smoothly and it was very stressful, at one point even leading to one member of DWP staff saying that they would be submitting a complaint to another's handling of the matter. By the time it was sorted out, over six weeks had passed since I began the placement. Not only did this mean a long period of me trying to manage without the right equipment and support that I needed, it meant that we missed the normal six-week timeframe for applying to access to work. That could have meant that Project Scotland might have ended up footing some of the bill for any equipment that the assessors recommended, or at least there would have to be negotiations with access to it. I have been very anxious about causing Project Scotland additional costs in this way. This issue has been a major barrier for me returning to work, both the actual difficulty in getting the right equipment and the anxiety I have felt about causing such an expense and difficulty to Project Scotland. It is not a tall project Scotland's fault that this has happened. I did also want access to work to fund the support person for me who is an employability specialist to help me sustain the internship. This has been funded from a different source via my work programme provider, for which I am tremendously grateful. There were also two times that my benefit has been suspended incorrectly, both related to the change in my circumstances. In both cases they were sorted out quite quickly, but both caused a lot of stress and distress at the time. In neither case was there any warning that this would happen, and in each case the shortfall was more than £500, which is a considerable sum when my total income a month is about £1,100, including the Project Scotland salary, and my rent is £650. There have been a lot of issues that have impacted on how sustainable this internship has been for me, and I have been very unwell as a result. It has been a complete nightmare, and my GP has been very concerned about me. The only positive thing to come out of all this is that I have been fast-tracked on to an NHS treatment programme, which was first recommended by my consultant in November 2013. How is it that being on the work programme, which is meant to help me to get into work, means that when I get offered work and want to do it as permitted work as part of a gradual process towards coming off benefits and gaining sustainable employment, that means that I can't even apply for the very support I needed to be put in place right away until a complicated process of getting permission takes place? How is it that no one seemed to be able to be very clear with me about what was needed promptly and ensure the right things were done? I thought it would be useful to quickly summarise what happened before finishing the statement. Dan has a serious mental health condition, as well as some physical and sensory impairment. She was told that she was fit for work and she tried to get into work. She was put on the work programme, who although well-meaning and friendly and supportive, clearly lacked the training to support her needs. She volunteered working hard to get ready for work, took the internship to try and get into paid work, and her housing benefit was stocked twice. She was denied access to work for months because she still hasn't got it, and it's now been a lot longer than six weeks, due to the bureaucracy at the DWP. The work programme adviser seemingly knew nothing about access to work in the first place, and all of that has resulted in mental health damage that has caused significant harm and risk of suicide. Her statement concludes, How is it that my earnest efforts to get into work should result in my being financially punished twice, albeit temporarily, through incorrect automatic cancellation of benefits payments? The very system that is meant to be helping me to get into work has actually set me back greatly in my process of doing so. It is hard not to feel that the system is deliberately designed this way in the hopes of encouraging people like me to just go away and give up. Thank you. We'll leave any questions or comments until we hear all the statements. Jake and Donna are supported today by someone from the Poverty Truth Commission. We're interested in hearing what you have found to be your experience on the work programme, what are the issues that you've been facing, what improvements do you think can be made. We've already heard quite a harrowing account of Dan's experience on the work programme. What about, from your perspective, what has it been like? Jake, do you want to go first? Thank you very much for inviting me. My name is Jacqueline, by the way. I'm known as Jake. I live in Glasgow. I was on a work programme a few years ago, just under two years ago, with Injust. I'm part of a self-reliant group in Glasgow, which originally set up a cafe and is now trying to run a laundry business. I've done all this voluntary thing, but it only seems to have caused problems with the work programme when I was on it. I had six advisers during my time on the work programme. That's one of the problems. You keep getting moved from one adviser to another. Sometimes they make you sit on the phone from nine to five each day making calls for jobs, but you know you're not going to get anything. It's depressing. I didn't like the fact that it's all open plan too when you get no privacy. The only help that I got myself was a referred myself to the jobs and business. No, sorry. I went to the business gateway for help first to try and start up my business in the laundry. The business gateway couldn't take me on because I was on a work programme. I had to wait till I was finished that. The only thing that's really helped me was a referred myself to the jobs and business Glasgow, where I got some support for things I wanted to do through the employability fund. Some of the training days have been good too, such as the first aid course and the Darnifood and Hygiene course, but the main problem was myself through the volunteering. I was volunteering for four years and I'm still volunteering. We run the wee business in the church, but I still don't get income of that just now. I can only do as much as look on it as a problem, but for me it may be my way out of this. At the time a lot of my friends had been sanctioned, through the work programme.  So I worked from half nine, half five them on until nine o'clock in the morning, plus I do my voluntary every day, running the wee laundry business from my church. So that's a wee bit about the work programme I've done myself. As I said, that was previous until just now. OK, thank you very much for that, Donna. OK, my name's Donna, I come from Glasgow. When I was first made redundant, I was redundant for six months, but I had got really sick, worrying about being sanctioned and things like that. I ended up, the reasons why I was made redundant as well made me stressed, so I ended up stressed. So six months I was on a panel for only six, and I was called into a work programme. So I first went, I got a letter for the work programme, saying if you need any help, you need any support or anything like that. And it seemed really encouraging. So first of all, I turned up, and my first person that had given me help me was a guy who, to him, maybe he was encouraging me, but I felt very bullied. No, he was kind of like, look at you compared to them all there. He actually made me feel like I was imagining my problems, that I really didn't have any problems. And I had worked for my life, and I just thought, I thought I was coming here to get encouraged to work, because I had some ideas. I've got lots of life skills and other areas where I could work. And I was actually quite excited to meet this person, but I just felt like he was trying to get me, you could do that job down now, you could do that job down now. He just knows if you've got a leg missing and things like that, he was saying to me. So twice each time he'd made me great. I just felt really, and I had lowest confidence being made redundant, so he kind of put me right down there. So then I got a second adviser, and he was great, but I had him for about two weeks, and then he moved on. But then he finally gave me a different person, who was being brilliant. She was very supportive. She sat down and she gave me some time. She gave me just me about myself, and she treated me like an individual. She did me like the first adviser. He sent me on a confidence building, because I lost a lot of my confidence. He sent me on this. There was about 25 people in this room, all the ages, from 18 to about 63, 64. We had totally different backgrounds. There was nothing confident building about it. It was just a tip box that we had done this. The people in the programme said, it was only like that, because we always get more people in than we need. Because a lot of people don't turn up in these programmes. That was the reason for them having this. For that being the first programme I had worked for years and years, this was me getting confidence building. I just felt, I have nothing in common with an 18-year-old. I just felt like it was a waste of time and energy. That was the next ending. Now I have a working links adviser, who has helped me get self-employed. She is listening to me with skills I have got. I will probably need to work just now while I try to get myself self-employed in a bank burner, but I will still have this person to advise me. I know that I have got this individual person who treats me like an individual. I don't feel demoralised. I think that the atmosphere in those places, you can, it smells like red bull. There is a horrible fearful atmosphere. It is the staff that are sitting in my red bull. I mean a lot of the time and the people who are coming in. It is not a happy space because you are getting people that you are getting to tell it to you. You don't need to work. We will put you on a panel, then you are getting the letter saying, you need to work if you are going to get sanctioned. You are going to get this. I just feel like we need to look at people as individuals now and I think that it is demoralising.  It is like in front of the whole place and they all see you getting your £2 or your £4 and you need to sign in and photocopy it and I know that they need to follow the money but there must be a reason why they are doing that. I just feel embarrassed having to do that. That is my experience. If you get the right advice, it is a great experience but if you are not going to get people that have empathy, that just want a job done, then there is no way that you are going to get help, do you understand? One of the things that has come up in each of the three contributions is that there is a bureaucracy there. I think that you talked and then there are six advisers, which is just incredible. Where is the continuity? Where is the personal relationship? Are the people that are helping you? Do you think that they are on targets? Are the targets helping if they are trying to develop a personal relationship? I know the work programme that I was on. It was The Injust. A few of the advisers said to myself that obviously they are working to targets and they are getting the thing that you will need to put so many people into work to put so many people through this because there was an incentive for the employers. If you were taking somebody on for six months, there was £1,000, then if the person was still in employment after six months, there was another £1,000 bonus, but that was going to let the work programme let the hire up, let the big business scheme. So I heard that a few times, so that's what I'm saying. They are all obviously working to targets. But not all of them are quite bad in that.  You were trying to explain your situation, but they're not listening. You just do as you have to do. The Government is giving you the money. You do as you're told. So that's what you were doing. If you didn't do that, you were sanctioned because you didn't follow your diary in. It's also interesting, both Jake and Donna, you mentioned, both of you mentioned, try to look at self-employment.  You're living in a sense from day to day, week to week. You don't have the same employment rights and conditions to fall back on as others might have. Was self-employment something that you thought was a desirable destination? Or was it something that, because there's no other jobs there, let's try self-employment. Why did the discussion about self-employment come up? Through myself being part of the self-reliant group that started in Glasgow, I could group eight women from an area. We all got together. What can we do for our community? So we started a wee lunch club for our pensioners and I've always worked for years and years as well, but through the process of bringing my three sons up, me and my partner didn't, there was a personal problem, so I had to stop work and concentrate and bring my three sons up now. So two is 20 and one's 18, one's in the armed forces, one's working and one's at college. So now that I can find a lot more time, I was always working in a laundry business, working in a student's accommodation, doing all the washing and that sort of thing. I had a wee idea. I would like to run my own. Through being part of the group with eight girls in my area, telling them my wee story, so we got all that together. We put a wee pound and a pot and through that we... But that's a big, big long story and it's a bit long for Eastie. Kind of a hear that, that's kind of a map personal. From where I was at the work programme, going to the job centre through our wee club, we've opened our wee laundry business, but I can't take a penny off that just now because I'm Merlin myself. So we have a business adviser that's working with me just now through our evolution office. That's helping us go through the process piece by piece, quite easy. It's not quite harrowing that... And both of you mentioned the big grooms that you were in having to make the calls and I think, Jake, you talked about sometimes being on the phone from nine to five each day looking for jobs. Both here from Glasgow, Glasgow's changed hugely over the years. My family were from East End of Glasgow and in those days you had heavy engineering, you had steelworks, you had the forge, you had places where traditionally men would go to work, but even for women, they were like my mother in MacFarlane Lines and so on. But there's nothing now in East End of Glasgow, big parts of Glasgow the same. So when you're in these places, phoning, are there realistic jobs available or are they just putting you through that because that's what the process demands? Putting you through the emotions, the tick box, isn't it? So what kind of jobs are they asking you to phone about?  Hi, my name's Jacqueline, I'm looking to see if you have any vacancies at the moment. Is it just through the rigmarole that you tick? No, no, no. You don't even know that there's a job there, you're just phoning unspecty. You think that there might be one. The reason for going self-employment tax credits for Goodland initially when they come out with tax credits and that's all being a single mum, that worked well for me, do not amend, so in self-employment there's zero contracts and all that, I mean, there's the security, do not amend, so at least if you're trying to date yourself. Did you experience the same as Jake's when you were having to phone and you didn't know whether there was any vacancies? No, because I think Jake has been a way of advising and been in the programme for longer than we do, I mean, but I'm just getting the encouragement to set up my own business just now and as well as I'm looking to see what part-time work I can do. What kind of business would that be? Doing therapies, so I don't know like a music workshop for kids, but I do that voluntary, actually detox, things like that. So what I was trying to do, and I think that's what's missing in our communities, we need to relax a wee bit, but I'm not immune in your society, not just in our communities. So I think that's one avenue that seems to be grown, I mean, you need the therapy, so that's why I chose that because we are so much more stressed in your society, but it's trying to get in and get started. Sorry, Phil. The experience that Diane had seems to have been quite different in terms of the amount of pressure she was put under to apply for jobs. She's not talked about any of that sort of experience of being made to go through a list and just phone up speculatively. To me, what it seems like is that they didn't expect her to get into work, and they didn't spend a lot of time on her because they were unlikely to get their payment for her. And when she turned, it wasn't through their efforts that she found our internship programme. She went and looked for it herself, she went out, she put the effort in and she applied to us, and she got offered the position. I don't know, but it's possible, even though it's not gone very well because of the issues that I've told you about, they're still going to get the outcome payment for that, despite having contributed nothing to what little success there has been, and in fact, having held it back because they didn't know the teller, you need to get your permitted work signed off before you apply to Access to Work. Really? Okay. Kevin? Thank you. I'm always interested to hear what folks have done previously and Jake, you said that you were involved in doing student laundry before bringing up your kids. What job did you have before Donna? I was developing my work at Church of Scotland. I actually work and I live in a poor area, so I worked there for years for entry, then I lost six years that I always paid work. Okay, so in terms of the work that you've done and in terms of bringing up your kids and the rest, nobody could say that you've skived as the UK Government seems to think always worked. So when you go into these places and you've got often it seems folks who are pretty demeaning about the situation that you find yourself in, what does that do to your confidence?  But I don't think we should, I think we should shrug it off because a lot of communities bring a lot of love and hope and togetherness, do you know what I mean? So I'm kind of a side-tranking, you know what I mean? It's alright, I'm quite happy to hear about love and hope and togetherness. There are many things that come with these things, you know what I mean? They are in a published area, but in trying to find a job you should be encouraged. I know, I see if I stuck through the first adviser who was totally negative I wouldn't be even trying for a job, I'd still be depressed, but because I'm with somebody who actually believed in me and actually was kind to me, who's made all the difference? Is humanity? I have a deprived area as well, I've lived there for a very, very long time. Sometimes I get similar reactions when I tell folk where I come from. Do you think that that's part of the problem that some of these advisers look at your postcode, your address and think... Definitely, especially with types of jobs that you want to go for, I come from a poor area, the jobs that I want are usually given to the middle class, I find that very difficult just in general, the barriers. Never mind if you're... I'm coming from being unemployed now, so it's very hard to get back into work. It's the jobs for the boys a lot of the time, I find. I start trying to set up a new business, when the charity money and things like that are all going straight to the middle, as usual, all the big charities get all the money. It's hard to set up something new, and I know that's not quite what we're talking about, but it's the same kind of area. It's alright for them, but it's not right for us. As well as them ticking the boxes, as you described, to meet their targets, they're actually pitting you in a box as well, aren't they? Would that be fair to say? Yeah. Can I ask, Phil, in terms of Diane's situation, where obviously there are some six problems there? It says in her statement that some of the staff there have done their level best, and it seems that where that has not happened, some of the folks that have been involved in that case have actually wanted to complain about others who have been handling her case. Is that true? I don't know too much of the detail, but my understanding is that the person who was meant to process Diane's approval to do permitted work, I'm not entirely clear on why if you're on a work programme you need permission to do permitted work, but apparently that was the case, and the person who was supposed to have processed that didn't do it correctly in some way, and was then quite poor in their attitude towards Diane and her adviser in dealing with that. My understanding is that the adviser was then talking about going above their head and raising a complaint. I'm afraid that's all the detail I have on that. Was that a dispute between whatever organisation was dealing with a work programme and the DWP? No, I believe that that was a dispute between her job adviser at the DWP because apparently it's someone at some other department that makes the decision about whether or not she can do permitted work. So, a bit of a rigmarole there. Finally, one of the things is that we've been told that these programmes are trying to boost folks confidence and get them back into work. Do you think that the work programme boosted your confidence or did it actually make you more depressed? You talked about red bull and depression, Donna, in the office. Do you think that it helped build confidence in any way, shape or form? I think that given the right adviser, it doesn't matter where you are, if somebody is believing in you, you can work through whatever environment. It's very hard to find the right adviser and understand that. People go to the brew and see how you feel the day instead of making you feel like you're beneath me. If you made that person I'm sure that people would enable you to work, you believe in yourself and you can do a job but people keep putting you down and you therefore then believe it. So, I think it's a hard thing to get around that. Do you feel the same way, Jack? At the time, I said that it was two years ago that I had the problems with inges because I had done my fill two years working with them. I was getting passed from a pilot to a post asking the job centre for advice and they were saying you deal with the inges, you're on the paper work now and you were asking the inges to see the job centre and take a box to a community box and dealt with things myself. Is the same go for Diana as well? Absolutely. She has been very confused about who's job is to do what in regard to between our work programme adviser, her job adviser whoever this other person has to sign off the permitted work. It's all been a bit unclear to her who she was supposed to go to. For my part I was just doing the best to support her as a disabled person trying to get into work and that's specifically what our programme is for. Getting access to work quickly was absolutely vital and it just couldn't happen. Can I thank you and can I wish you the best for your businesses I hope that they're a great success. Thank you. Just before I bring Clarence can I come back to these phone calls looking for jobs? Two things Are you giving a list of vacancies to follow up? The second thing is what's the response like when your phone and company is cold to ask if they've got any vacancies? Is it quite a cut response? No. How does it make you feel when you get that kind of brush off? The book I got was all the businesses or the cleaning companies or laundry companies you were just to phone up and say you're looking for work most of them say no don't phone here again so you were just to mark down beside your when you're phoned and what so they're getting annoyed because if you're doing it then God knows how many other people are doing it and I know some friends at work in one of the big council buildings it was saying a lot more mail was coming in they knew it was coming in so you just don't deal with it at all and just go to shred all that Could we get a copy of that? Can we get a copy of what people are giving so for example if you are giving a booklet with a list of numbers and some instructions of what to do with that Could we get a rise in that? We've got which company was it you were with? Ingers I don't know if they're so we could We'll see if we can get that ahead in next week but we could ask Simon if we could get that ahead If it's as described this is an effect state sanctioned code calling That's what it is, if it's as you've described there's no reason to doubt you but I would like to get my eyes on it myself You go on the computer desks they're all out over there and everybody's sitting at their desk with their booklets phoning up and you're just marked down back again You're still the same answer Companies are also saying if they see that it's coming free whatever organisation they're not entertaining or even looking at it so if you're getting I tried to get a job whilst I was in that agency and I was applying and they couldn't get it to forward it do you know how you like to get through at the next stage this application the advisor came and I had about six people who were trying to access the application for the job that advertised so they sent the advertisement but it's really difficult and I sent them an email asking for it and eventually I got one after about five days and I'm sure I've done that from my home but I'm sure it's because I've done it from working links Thank you Thank you very much for your contribution today What I'd really like to ask is at any time where you're given an opportunity to feedback particularly I'm thinking of the confidence building course was there an assessment sheet at the end, did you find it useful was there any kind of quality control at all that you were able to give at any point on the work programme I got an apology from them saying that too many people had turned up never normally they would do that but because so many people had turned up that they didn't have a chance to run the actual programme on the day So did you get an opportunity to do it another time? Well I did say well can you take in my complaint that that was demoralising and I felt embarrassed and I felt worse confidence after it and so there wasn't I wasn't written down but I did tell my advisor that I got an apology but not an opportunity to get the training said that you needed or a second confidence building class and just if I could ask Phil you mentioned that there's a feeling that the most difficult people to reach like the people that need the most support are the ones that are getting the least help in this situation if you come across I know you're here to represent Diane's statement today but is it quite common that the equipment that's needed to help there's delays in getting that in place? Unfortunately it's extremely common access to work is hugely under promoted as a general rule vast vast numbers of employers have never heard of it in their lives frequently when I go in to support these paid internships and I talk to the employers and say have you ever heard of access to work? No and the same is true for the interns themselves but once you get down the process if it's fairly simple it can be reasonably quick but reasonably quick is still two or three weeks and that means you could be in the job for a couple of weeks without the equipment you need can you imagine for someone who's deaf not having sign language interpreters that's a huge barrier but if you've got the sort of severe mental health and anxiety related issues that Diane has it has a catastrophic effect Diane is much worse off than she was when she started this process she was in a much better place and much better mental health than she is now and that's not what's supposed to happen In terms of the access to work do you think that DWP understand the responsibilities and the people involved in the work programme understand that what's there and what's available and are they able to deal with it properly? It seems from my experience that a lot of people who are providing the work programme don't have nearly enough knowledge of access to work don't have nearly enough knowledge of what is needed to support a disabled person the concept of reasonable adjustments and alterations to a work environment that can make a huge difference it's not what they're necessarily trained to do and access to work is part of that just about access to work is about understanding where people are coming from and you've talked about the individual approach the individual approach is absolutely key to disabled people because no two people's requirements are the same that there's definitely more needing done to make people aware of access to work but I think that when you're trying to support disabled people getting into work the people involved need to know what they're talking about and they can have the best will and Dan's very complimentary about her work programme advisor a lovely person, very friendly tried his best just clearly didn't have the training he needed and that's not his fault that's the systems Just before I bring Joan in on that point and I want to come in can I just stick with this issue about people with disabilities whether it's mental health issues or other things trying to get into work places like Glasgow it's a pretty competitive market there's a lot of people looking for jobs and there's not a lot of jobs there how successful are the programmes in getting disabled people into work because many employers would probably take the easy route out if you're looking to hire somebody and you've got someone with either a disability or someone who's come through a significant period of mental health problems and then you've got somebody where there are no issues the easy way out for an employer is to take the person where they don't have to make any effort to do so how successful are these programmes in helping people with disabilities to get into work or again is it just tokenism I'm afraid I don't have the statistics immediately hand but my understanding is that they are woefully unsuccessful that the success rates of getting disabled people into work through the programme are very low work choices has better results because work choices is a bit more voluntary and it is specifically aimed at people with additional support needs so it tends to have better results but if I can give an example the internship programme that Dan is taking part in is in its second year and the reason it's in its second year is that in the first year we had a great deal of trouble getting disabled people to apply for the opportunities and the reason for that primarily was that they had to apply through the DWP through their job adviser so you have people who are terrified of being sanctioned being told if you want to apply for an opportunity that is specifically aimed at you you have to go and tell your job adviser that you feel ready for work it was a huge disincentive I think it's a cultural thing they don't feel that the system is actually designed to help them they feel it's designed to punish them I just wanted to go back to your point about access to work fund I was meeting quite recently with Leonard Cheshire disability who specifically wanted to raise the access to work fund with me and they basically reflected what you were saying as if it's used properly and people know about it it can actually be very supportive but what she was saying is that they were disappointed that it wasn't being devolved so while we're devolving disability benefits and we're devolving these programmes hopefully we can design something better we're not going to have access it's not going to be devolved so we can't bring it into the new design would you say that that was a problem as well? I think what Diane Storrie shows that there's definitely a problem with how linked up things are access to work is part of the DWP and yet it doesn't seem to have been designed to function smoothly with the process that people are being put through in the work programme I've still yet to understand why Diane's access to work application was cancelled because she didn't have some piece of paper which said it was okay for her to do permitted work why are you on the work programme if you're not expecting to get permitted work at some point it should have been smooth and seamless and that's what Diane needed it to be but I would agree with what Leonard Cheshire was saying that it can be a huge source of benefit it's a wonderful thing, it's like the NHS when it works it's amazing but if you're prevented from accessing it properly or if there's barriers put in the way of it operating smoothly then it can be very frustrating Thank you so much for your testing this morning you're getting a full set I grew up in Easterhouse so you've got a full set of work here today one of the questions I wanted to ask you was about the opportunities and I know about the confidence building course but the opportunities offered to you were tailored towards your skill whether there was any sort of skills analysis done on what you can do what experience you've got where you've got aspirations to go as well was any that taken into account were you offered any tailored courses that would allow you to realise some of those aspirations that you had? I explained my situation to them about the voluntary that I was doing but I say that they were just concentrating you just have to get a job as soon as any job that's the way I felt so when something like employment is something that's supposed to fulfil you as well as get you a bit of money to live your life as well there was no interest in that it was just any job but on your list or any job that they thought that you were capable of doing that you were to go forward and put your name forward for it and do the application for it that was just my personal situation Donna, you said that you've got some specific skills on about therapies and stuff was there anything offered to you to realise that? The last advisor I have at the minute, Gail is brilliant she's tried to I needed like reiki3 to be a reiki master so she's contacted for me and she's actually trying to cater she feels she would like to be more empowered if she could give me more help she would you know, I like to pay for more courses and things like that too because before I was under a banner a big organisation but now try to get out on your own it's not so easy but she's offered to help me to get it online and everything so she's definitely trying to help me and the individual and the person who had at the start who demoralised me in this woman they both have the same job the same job title but this woman is empowering me so I just feel like your experience is complete inconsistency amongst advisors and that's something that maybe everybody has experienced and I'm also dyslexic and nationally I do see that as a barrier in finding a job so I was so frightened when I got my redundant I was going to get sanctioned with my dyslexia and all the forums and missing dates I thought I could get that rang and my children won't get fed that week it was a terrifying experience and I'm sure if that wasn't in place I wouldn't have got so stressed so that's your advisor that you worked with as well but the actual work programme has that made any difference in your life? Would you have done it anyway? Would you have pursued some of the ideas that you and your group your activity group in Glasgow have done? Would you have pursued some of your training and all the opportunities there anyway? Did the work programme make any difference to you? My advisor now definitely that she's helped me and I would have been a mental hospital if I stayed with that other advisor or I would have shot him in the nutshell but this other one has definitely encouraged me and really helped me to grow as a person again because I was down and she's really helped me to believe in myself again so I really believe and I'm grateful for the help that she's given me As of June this year third force news had a report from the DWP that suggested that only 24% of people going through the work programme were successful and only 9% of them were in a job after a year and I think what was the figure was that the DWP had paid the providers £1.8 billion since the scheme had started for that type of outcome and that's where I'm trying to get to is all of that money worth the service that you have been given any of you that's a bit scary isn't it and I was going to ask you about access to work as well because I always used my background was in social work and I used access to work with a number of people in fact as a unison steward I used access to work so if that's something that's completely failing as well and you're absolutely right people don't know about it how do you think that we can make people more aware of that type of service being available I think there's a great deal of education with employers that could be done it's something that employers should ask every employee as soon as they're appointed it should be explored because a lot of people who could benefit from access to work may not know how they can benefit a lot of the experiences that I've had working with interns has been to tell them about what access to work can do and nine times out of ten you get a very surprised oh I didn't know I could get that that might actually be quite helpful I've actually used access to work myself in a fairly minor way but it certainly made a huge difference to keeping me able to do my job at the level that I was capable of doing it so it's often referred to within my work field as the best kept secret of the DWP because it does seem like there's no one's trying to actually make it known and it's being cut because it's being underused which is going to be a cyclical problem if you don't encourage people to use it they're not going to use it and then you're going to cut it and then you're going to spend even less money on telling people about it and so on it's a lifeline it's a vital lifeline for a lot of people they can make relatively small amounts of money can make a huge difference I mean you're talking spend a couple of hundred quid maybe a thousand pounds at the beginning of someone's employment and that person could be a productive worker for decades to come but you know you don't spend that money and it's not going to happen okay thank you just very quickly the disability benefits consortium have produced a report as well and I just got a site of some of it this morning and it was to really pick up something that you said Donna was the fear that you had the absolute fear that then your condition but also the fear of being sanctioned whether your kids would be fed or not and one of the key elements of this report is to talk to people about the reduction in ESA that's been proposed and the impact that would then have on them and 69% of them said their health would get worse and 69% said they would struggle to pay their bills 70% said they would struggle to maintain their independence which is something that's vitally important to your own mental health and wellbeing and 28% of them said that they couldn't afford to eat now if that's what you know if people are having that type of experience now and there's a further cut then to their benefit the more pressures put on them for some of the things that you've said that you were made to do what kind of impact do you think that would have on you as an individual but maybe people that you know that are stuck in the system whether you want it or not and it's a shame because I've been to other countries in the world and Scotland's a great place we've got lots of great stuff going on but I just feel like we're getting this bit rang now and it's a shame because Phil was valued who I am where we come from but I just feel like it's a shame it's kind of like the rich dictating to the poor and squishing them in a box he's just so that needy's watching what the rich are doing so I just feel like it's enough a shame that the media's only covering us and no-covering what's happening with the banks etc Class warfare in the other Definitely I think this is a bit the whole but it's a big propaganda Propaganda, thanks I want to just to ask about how easy it was for you to access your provider and speak to your advisor so was the provider provider base locally to where you live and how far did you have to travel to see your advisor? Let's go up by Redri Sots in the city centre I was going just to bus journey it was 20 minutes down 20 minutes back home on a bus I'm the same, I just said 5 minutes first so that wasn't a problem but it was where I was in my head when I first got asked to go because I was only just on the sick, the next minute I had to go here and I was just like I'm supposed to be no well I thought when you were sick because everybody else had seen being on the sick for years and I was asked to go there straight away I found that quite frightening if I didn't go I was worried how long did each appointment last for? One still week and anything from an hour to three, four hours it would be whenever your advisor advised you to come in so he would say to me you could come in here every day and look for a job, I don't see what's stopping you but looking for a job would be would Jackie explain sitting with me about just going through the should we ignore the phone all day long and have confidence up and mapping Politicians go canvassing and will phone when things are going well it feels great and when things are going badly it can be demoralising if you're going into an area that's not familiar or natural territory it's just the spirit what is it like if you're three, four hours or the whole day and just get the knot back what do you feel at the end of it when you come out? Sometimes you feel like it's screaming because you're getting told no constantly for the three, four hours you're doing your best to try and get in contact with someone that may be offering you a job so you get in a wee bit built up but you're coming out you're just hitting the ground some of them are saying that you're on the phone don't phone here again you feel like that you're damned if you don't anything Sorry John You've spoken at length about the difficulties that you've faced but did you get any help which was particularly helpful or unexpected? Was there anything positive that you took from the meetings you had with the advisers and the provider? You're going for an interview and that they give you so much when you get a realist if you need black trousers or a blouse you get some clothes and shoes to go for interviews and you get to learn your wee interview techniques the GUB tips and things like that which was quite good and helpful for some people having to get in there are good tracksuit bomb zones and there are no suitable for going for an interview so it was good that way you got to help that way and let your bus verse I think you've said at the end of your statement that you've now got a job can you tell us a bit about your job and how you got that? I've got that myself and my friends all working at different cleaning companies so I just phoned up one of my friends and there were any jobs going at the time yes there was so working from half past five to nine o'clock in the morning Monday to Friday enjoying that I've got an income now coming in for the house and I've not got any hassle you've got to lease job centres and that I can breathe a wee bit more easy and still doing my voluntary cos I've still got the rest of the day I do my work in the morning I do my voluntary for the rest of the day I'm busy a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday running where we are on streets based in our church so does that mean you don't have to go to see your adviser as often or you still have to go to those appointments no because my experience was previous two years ago I was on that so I've been doing my voluntary so I've came to the previous so I don't know how it's changed when I was there just now that's just my mawi story just on that voluntary activity do you find that people who are involved in voluntary activity can sometimes be the backbone of the community that your voluntary activity is affected because you've been forced to go through this charade of getting your offices to phone and look for non-existent jobs and that pulls you away from actually helping vulnerable people we run the wee pensioners club each week through give them lunch every Wednesday so that's got all our community all the old houses down took the community away for a good few years so we've brought the community back together bringing at least people out of their houses that don't go out of their house for one week to another getting new friends and we're doing all different things we run wee dances, we do bagpack and we take them away for the day we give ourselves a wee treat so that's the kind of things we look forward to doing and we're happy that somebody goes oh that was great I enjoyed my soup and my sandwiches today thanks very much and I'll see you next week again so that gives you the wee boost that's all you're looking for you don't get any money for that so you get that wee self respect that's where we are today okay, cool I enjoyed a lot of disabled people who are on the group which I forget the name but it's the one where you're not basically not expected to work you're just getting your ASA what used to be in capacity benefit perhaps would like to change that situation they would like to get into work and they might pursue that through volunteering but they are often put off from volunteering through fear that if by doing so the DWP decides that they're fit for work and takes benefits away so it's a catch 22 they want to get into a better situation but they're so terrified of the sanctions that they hold off from doing so it's not helpful okay, Joan very much, convener committee commissioned some research into the work programme from the University of Edinburgh and what is quite significant is that just reading through the conclusions of the research, they really reflect that your individual stories and like they point out things like providers may not sufficiently match suitable claimants to specific vacancies they talk a lot about people's anxiety the thought of sanctions and the payments by result financial model doesn't reward progress made in bringing claimants closer to work one of the other things that the researcher says and I just wondered if this was something that you had come across is that the research found that they thought that personal advisers were under pressure to meet performance targets is that your experience? I think the advisers are set a target as well when they're in their work I don't know how they work to go so many people into their job and you're dealing with all different ones I just think that the companies are set targets and that's how I know people go and work some of them like their work but a lot of the advisers go I hate doing this as well By having performance targets they're giving advice or treating you in a way which is inappropriate and unhelpful about meeting these targets Definitely If you've not got a target hanging over you you can then treat a person as an individual and get to know them but I do believe that the first person he was working under the target when he used to do that and his company would have stopped but he's still in that habit getting them at the door do you know what I'm talking about? Get them into a job and I says to him, do you get a target money for me I know they've done away with that but you are able to work any way so I don't know if they still do that company because I know the next adviser had a totally different attitude than the target and I'm sure it's because she works under a less targeted regime if you understand I just want to go back to Jake to this issue of volunteering and the flexibility of the programme one of the things again that our research showed was that the programme wasn't flexible and it was so inflexible that it actually stopped people advancing and I was struck by the fact that in your evidence you said that you went to business gateway to get help with your laundry which is probably from what you've said your best chance of finding work that's where your skills were until you came off the work programme and that way the work programme was actually stopping you going further with the business gateway but then when I went to jobs in business in Easterhouse in Glasgow that was when my adviser helped me to get through the business plan with us so he helped me the most that way was that after you finished on the work programme right so it was only after you finished on the work programme that we were really able to make progress OK Neil This session has really disturbed me and upset me in fact it's disgusted me what's happening to you people and the system that we've created the atmosphere in this system is just so wrong I find it incredible the more evidence that people present to us about this it absolutely disgusts me and it also disgusts me what they've done to public servants who are on the front line having to deal with people who are going through this bloody system because I don't think that for one second they want to treat people like this the vast majority of them 99.9% of them don't want to treat people like this and they're on the front line having to deal with government policy it is outrageous what is happening here I think though we have to get away from the view that just because you devolve something is better because that's simply not the case we can devolve some stuff and make it worse so I think we have to part that to the side and say that the system that we've got is clearly not working and there are so many different elements that are not working that I just really don't know where we're going to go with this where you're doing clearly very good I look at you and I see so many of my pals and people in my community doing that type of work where is the sanity of taking you out of a system where you're taking out you out of a place where you're doing good voluntary work in your community, building your community to sit and thumb through effectively a phone book and cold call people that just is madness absolute madness I suppose what I'm getting to is what kind of system should we create if you're looking for work I've signed on before in the past going into the job centre is probably the most depressing experience one of the most depressing experiences in my life so how do we create a system where you walk through that door and you actually feel as though there's a bit of hope and a bit of ambition and that people are there to help you and me when it was me to move on in your life what kind of system would you like to see created you could say engineers, you can come over here you're engineer friendly or here you know how you like, skilled workers fling me workers break us up and individuals we're all the same I have nothing in common with an 18 year old boy do you know what I mean would it help if you had a list of available vacancies either in the east end or in the city centre that you could actually go and ask them would they give you an interview rather than doing a cold call into companies would it help if the work programme had those vacancies there for you I used to work my job centre I used to get a job centre they'd be up on the board to get one you'd go sit down and that still exists because it used to be on computer format you'd look up where the vacancies are does that still happen it's like you put in for your vacancy and it can be in England, it can be in England so you try and get it very local and you're still in Glasgow so I'm still getting sent and I'm leaving or wherever it's not local to me but that's the jobs that will come up on the screen and the bottom line is the issue is not putting people through endless courses that are presumably going to be the magic ticket to a job the issue is there's not enough jobs surely that's the bottom line that what we need to create is more jobs somebody said to me the other day we've probably got the most educated workforce that we've ever had in our history but we've got the most unequal society that we've ever had in our history therefore the problem isn't to shove more education down people's throats it's to create a system where we become more equal and that's giving people employment and that's the dilemma that I think we're having to wrestle with my contribution is not asking you many questions it's just allowing me to express my frustration at the system that you're going through and I can hear it in your voice and can see it for your evidence and I hear it from people in my own constituency so again there's a lot of folk are coming out of factory work or engineering shipyards and all that they're skilled workers in many areas we're needing to change and reskills different skills where should that train and be I think a workplace if I was setting one up first thing I would do would retrain get people IT skills a lot of folk are factory workers don't have IT skills to switch on the computers and things like that you need to take away the fear factor and enable people just to apply for the jobs what should you experience that people in your community you both stay quite near each other they're in the area which I know well what kind of jobs people who are unemployed in the area what kind of jobs are they moving into do you think an area where it's black kiln problemo it's quite a bad area for a few years ago so a lot of youth had grown up to drugs, drink so the last few years are kind of the younger ones that's grown up so they're all getting into apprenticeships now they're getting a lot of apprenticeships what about people who have been made redundant like Donna, you were made redundant people that might be worked in a factory for a number of years factory shuts down or the office closes you're talking about is that mostly where it is call centre call centre a lot of cleaning work cleaning and men are building up all the new houses in Glasgow so a lot of folk are getting jobs through that but again people are getting their apprenticeships they're only getting the work to the apprenticeships and then they're not getting any experience so you're getting these kids that are contributing to apprenticeships that aren't getting any are you talking about this proper apprenticeships or are you talking about the apprenticeships that are the you know there's a label put on it you're being an apprenticeship but it's not really some of them are for a year some of them are for a year some of them people have not they've moved on and got other jobs they've carried on, they're an apprenticeship 20 years down the line I know that the Wheatley group have a who own the housing stock in Glasgow, the Glasgow Housing Association have a guarantee of apprenticeships for tenants of their homes and daughters of tenants so that maybe a number are getting apprenticeships if I could just say we have to be very careful not to disrespect the young people that are going through apprenticeships at the moment because all of them are going through accredited apprenticeships that have the support of the employers behind them and I think we do a service by trying to say that there's something wrong in that system, I don't think that's very fair for the young people if I could just say in terms of the we will be getting some of the control over social security we would like to have more as has been expressed by Joan today as well but what you've experienced is down to leadership and what we've seen from the government officials who've come to give evidence here and then speaking to Pretty Patel, the minister there seems to be a complete denial that there are about the experience of people from the leadership at the moment but what the Scottish Government have said is that dignity and respect will be at the heart of the social security system that we will build for Scotland do you feel that dignity and respect are part of the system at the moment? I would love to see that happen I've yet to meet anyone in my work that thinks the job centre is there to help me get a job they think it's there to take the benefits away if they don't jump through all the hoops that they're asked if we could change it so that people who walk in a job centre feel that they're going to a place which actually is going to listen to them and understand them and meet their needs to help them get into a job and we'll have done a great good Christina A quick question and maybe Phil to answer this and anybody else but one of the other things that I've been reading about was people, especially people with disabilities we may be complex disabilities or some challenges just being parked by some of these employment agencies and just left there because they get the money for them anyway and whether that's something that you feel is initially it was thought because when the work programme was quite new that that was maybe just something that happened because people didn't have to build up the skillset to enable that dedicated support for that person and whether that would get better with time if you get any experience of people who have been parked and whether it has got any better but in time or is it got worse? I can't say it's gotten better with time but I definitely do have experience of working with the sale people who've been in the system for some time and just don't feel like it's getting them anywhere and an opportunity like the ones that we've been running recently has come along and they've grabbed it with both hands and it has made a big difference we had a set of interns here in the Parliament that did very well indeed out of that and some of them had been through all these things work programme etc and they'd just basically been written off it was clear that people didn't feel that they had enough to offer to be worth the bother but they proved them wrong and I think that's it it's just a lack of vision to realise that disabled people all have a contribution to make and in many cases have a particular special contribution to make to a lot of areas of work because of their lived experience but there's a lot of things that need to be improved to make that possible you can't just point to one part of the system and say that's the problem there needs to be more awareness of what can be done to make adjustments and make things more inclusive and you hear Michael Hessell saying that this is the best time to lose your job because there's loads of opportunities your answer is clear okay Donna and Jake I'm going to give you the last word Claire had mentioned about any new system in Scotland should be based in dignity and respect if there were a couple of simple things about the work programme that you could change what would they be what would you do to make it different just a bit more respect in the way some of them speak to you knowing them all just some some of them I sit there and listen to what skills you can do and where you think you can work and sit and say an adviser and see if they can match you up instead of being dictated to all the time what it is you want to do and how we can help would be great okay thank you I know it can't have been easy for you but thank you very much for coming to the meeting and helping us to understand a bit better what it's actually like for ordinary working people to go through that process Phil can you pass on our best wishes to Diane thank her for the statement we hope things worked out for her so thank you very much indeed okay and at that I'll suspend the meeting and we'll move into private session