Service delivery

As a public service, Jobcentre Plus has a very large customer base. In February 2010, there were 5.9m working age claimants (Department for Work and Pensions, 2010a: 7). The key welfare benefits administered by Jobcentre Plus are Jobseeker's Allowance (an unemployment benefit with a caseload of 1.5 million in February 2010), Employment and Support Allowance and other incapacity-related benefits (2.6 million), and Income Support (principally paid to those with an incapacity, lone parents and carers) (1.8 million) (Department for Work and Pensions, 2010a: 7, 12). The employment services delivered include job brokering, advertising vacancies and delivering employment programmes.

Jobcentre Plus, like many Government agencies, has ostensibly a ‘customer focus’. Indeed, such a focus had been a longstanding feature of its two predecessor organisations, the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service. This customer focus reflects the recasting of citizens and clients as customers as part of the rise of managerialism and the ideology of the New Right during the 1980s and 1990s (Newman, Reference Newman, Clarke, Gewirtz and McLauglin2000: 45; Clarke et al., Reference Clarke, Newman, Smith, Vidler and Wetmarland2007: 27–46; Ling, Reference Ling and Tam1994). For example, early on in its history, the Benefits Agency had a customer-orientated focus (Benefits Agency, 1991), and in 1994 the Agency introduced its ‘One Stop’ programme which sought to provide a full service from a single contact. This focus continued under New Labour. Its 1998 welfare Green Paper had a strong customer focus, the intention being to have services that ‘meet customers’ needs, rather than those of the organisations delivering the service’ (Department of Social Security, 1998: 71). Consumerism in Jobcentre Plus services has taken many forms, including branding benefit recipients as customers, the introduction of telephone call centres, web-based technology and other self-service facilities in local offices, and the development of more personalised/individualised employment programmes delivered by Personal Advisers (see Stafford, Reference Stafford and Millar2009). These developments transfer the onus and cost for securing a service from the provider (Jobcentre Plus) to the user, mirroring systems currently used in the UK retail banking sector.

Nonetheless, the adoption of a customer approach to welfare benefits is problematic. Benefit recipients are not customers in the classic retail market sense as they have little or no choice in whether to use the service. Dissatisfied customers have no real option to exit and ‘shop’ elsewhere (Hirschman, Reference Hirschman1970). The focus on consumerism also serves to undermine the idea that people have a social right to welfare services (Dwyer, Reference Dwyer2004; Miller, Reference Miller2004).

The establishment of Jobcentre Plus was accompanied by the transfer of staff from ‘back office’ benefit process to ‘front office’ customer service roles (Johnson, Reference Johnson2003: 3; Finn et al., Reference Finn, Knuth, Schweer and Somerville2005; Karagiannaki, Reference Karagiannaki2007). Whilst this led to greater efficiency in getting ‘job-ready’ people back to work, Jobcentre Plus does not provide the intensive and specialist support, which is not necessarily employment related, for those some distance from the labour market (Karagiannaki, Reference Karagiannaki2007: 192–3; Stafford, Reference Stafford and Millar2009).

Alongside these service delivery developments, there has been the increasing marketisation of service provision with the contracting out of employment programmes (Finn, Reference Finn and Millar2009) and the redesign of internal processes using private sector methodologies, notably the LEAN principles developed by Toyota.Footnote ² Notwithstanding the emphasis on being customer-focused, modernisation has been driven by managers, and there has been little user involvement in planning or design (Stafford, Reference Stafford and Millar2009).

Delivering services to vulnerable people

Jobcentre Plus defines a vulnerable customer as someone who ‘at the time’ experiences a ‘difficulty’ dealing with the demands of accessing the service (Jobcentre Plus, 2008a: 3). Vulnerable customers are unlikely to be able to use ‘normal channels’ and so will benefit from face-to-face assistance. Official guidance, the AJCS – Go Look See Support Pack (Jobcentre Plus, n.d.), was issued to staff to aid in the identification of vulnerability. The 12 page pack devotes two pages to defining vulnerability. The process of identifying vulnerable customers is predicated on the basis of staff using their own judgement. The guidance states that there are certain personal factors and circumstances likely to be associated with vulnerability (see Table 1). Moreover, there are behavioural traits (such as being in distress, not understanding questions and giving one word answers) that indicate that the person is unlikely to be able to use the self-help services.

Table 1 Factors that may be relevant to identifying vulnerable customers (list is not intended to be exhaustive)

Source: Jobcentre Plus (n.d.: 9–10).

The Jobcentre Plus definition of vulnerability is both relativistic and subjective. It is relativistic because it is not a trait or characteristic that individuals possess across all of their business with the organisation, rather it is time-varying – a person could be judged as vulnerable on one occasion but not on another. It is subjective because it is based on a Customer Service Manager's observation and interaction with the individual and on the officer's own judgement (see DWP Standards Committee, 2008: 37). How vulnerability is defined and identified is important because failure to identify someone as vulnerable could cause them unnecessary financial hardship and distress.

As described above, forum area staff have to make very quick judgements on whether or not a particular customer should be classed as vulnerable when they enter the local office. The DWP suggest that stage 1 lasts between one to three minutes (DWP Standards Committee, 2008: 37). Indeed, a newsletter to Jobcentre Plus managers (Jobcentre Plus, 2008: 2) states that stage 1, including identifying vulnerable customers should in total only take up to one minute; and the official guidance states that identification of a vulnerable customer could take place in ‘seconds’ (Jobcentre Plus guidance cited in Duffy et al., Reference Duffy, Roberts and Stafford2010). This is confirmed by some Customer Service Managers who claimed that they are expected to determine vulnerability in less than one minute.

The approach to identifying vulnerability varies between local offices and Benefit Delivery Centres and so vulnerability has been defined inconsistently across the country. As described above, vulnerability is largely assessed on a combination of the staff's own judgement and the agency's guidelines. Staff base their assessment on the behaviour of customers when they enter the office and any past experience of dealing with the person. Staff can also apply a ‘behavioural test’, whether the customer can use the office's self-service facilities without assistance, or a ‘telephone test’, whether customers have access to a telephone and the ability to use telephony services. Some staff insisted that they can infer vulnerability simply by talking briefly to people and by observing their behaviour. In addition, staff and the official guidance recognise that customers often know how their needs could be best served. Staff can take into account customers’ wishes; for example, by allowing friends or relatives to act as translators for those with English as a second language. Indeed, at stage 1 some vulnerable customers, who have experience of stage 3, simply ask straight away to see a named Customer Support Officer (Interviews).

Many staff thought that the office environment had become safer, because forum areas were more actively managed by Customer Care Officers under AJCS. Other staff, however, believed that AJCS is itself a cause of tension within local offices because of the handing-on of customers to other channels, notably getting people to contact the Benefit Delivery Centre and associated queues around the CAPs. Any improved management of flows and safety may have been at the expense of vulnerable customers because of the variation in how local offices managed the unappointed footfall. In some local offices, Customer Care Officers, that is security staff, prioritised ensuring a safe environment and limited public access to the office. People without pre-booked appointments were turned away, and friends and relatives accompanying users (including vulnerable customers) were denied entry. Indeed, it is possible that vulnerable customers, especially those with a mental health condition, were more likely to be accompanied by a third party and so may have been disproportionately and adversely affected by staff limiting public access to local offices. The legal right of the public to enter local Jobcentre Plus offices is unclear, but AJCS was never intended to limit public access to self-service facilities in local Jobcentre Plus offices and staff should not have been doing so.

Whilst AJCS provides a degree of flexibility in the management of customers, there is a risk that some individuals who should be assessed as vulnerable are not. Consumer representatives, whose organisations deal with more complex and difficult cases, expressed concerns about the variation in the interpretation of vulnerability nationally. They felt that many vulnerable customers are not being identified under AJCS due to a lack of staff training. As a consequence, their organisations are assisting people with less obvious vulnerabilities. There is a particular concern that people with ‘invisible’ disabilities, such as mental health conditions, hearing impairments or intellectual impairments, may not be identified as vulnerable when they should be. For example, consumer representatives said that someone with mid-range autism would be able to use a telephone and call a Benefit Delivery Centre and so might not be identified as vulnerable when arguably they might need additional help and support. Or someone with a bipolar disorder might appear on a visit to the local office to be positive and capable of coping with the system, but be unable to do so later on and so their claim may be inappropriately dealt with because their ‘vulnerability’ had not been identified at the outset. Customer representatives argued that some groups of consumers, such as those with literacy difficulties, would be unwilling to inform Customer Service Managers about their ‘vulnerability’ in what is a public space. It is also possible that people who were not ‘vulnerable’ – or are in fact able to use the self-service facilities – are incorrectly classed as vulnerable. These ‘false positives’ divert already limited staff resources from where it is needed. Moreover, some local office staff said that identifying vulnerability over the telephone is more difficult than assessing it face-to-face and accordingly telephony staff in Benefit Delivery Centres frequently misjudge a consumer's vulnerability. Notwithstanding these concerns, both forum area and Benefit Delivery Centre staff claimed that in general they are successful in identifying vulnerable customers.

Customer Support Officers at stages 2 and 3 could contact the Benefit Delivery Centre on the customer's behalf in an attempt to resolve their query. However, time constraints and the nature of the enquiries could mean that staff are unable to fully support customers, and may refer them to external advice agencies, even for help with relatively straightforward issues, such as completion of claim forms. Customer representatives believed that too many vulnerable customers are being channelled to external advice agencies when the matter could be resolved within Jobcentre Plus.

Additionally, and as mentioned above, there is evidence that some customers whose circumstances are more complex encounter difficulties in accessing services under the new regime. In part, this is because of difficulties they might encounter in having to deal with both their local office and the regional Benefit Delivery Centre, and communication shortcomings between local offices and the relevant processing centre. Many of these customers with complex circumstances are likely to be vulnerable. In general, staff thought that the working relationships between local offices and the Benefit Delivery Centre were positive. However, staff and customer representatives noted that on occasions customers have been passed between local offices and Benefit Delivery Centres a number of times before their enquiries are dealt with. Reactions include customers becoming increasingly agitated and frustrated. Local office staff felt that telephony staff do not always appreciate the reactions of customers both to delays in getting a response and to the (disappointing) information that telephony staff may have to relay to individuals. In addition, some Customer Support Officers (Interview) maintained that Benefit Delivery Centre staff sometimes double-book appointments or do not provide enough information in the shared diaries for pre-booked appointments and this limits what can be achieved at stage 3 and may mean that the customer is ‘bounced’ back to the telephony team. More generally, local staff were critical of the high staff turnover in Benefit Delivery Centres and a perceived lack of training for telephony staff.

AJCS is in part designed to re-focus Jobcentre Plus local offices on jobsearch-related activities, including using a jobseeking channel, searching for employment, and applying for a position. The increase in unemployment due to the economic downturn means that staff find it difficult to assess the impact of AJCS on jobsearch-related activities. Some staff said that by re-directing customers to self-help channels AJCS has created extra time for them to focus on jobsearch-related activities. Other staff, however, argued that operational time limits mean that once the customers’ benefit enquiries have been addressed there is insufficient time to consider jobsearch-related activities. Moreover, the increase in the number of claimants and hence footfall due to the recession means that staff prioritise processing people through the system and this is at the cost of offering jobsearch-related support. In addition, vulnerable customers are often some distance from being ‘job ready’ and staff felt that offering support on jobsearch as inappropriate. Yet vulnerable people are likely to be particularly adversely affected during an economic downturn.

Implications for current policy

Although the evaluation was about AJCS, it has significant implications for subsequent approaches to employment services and the reform of welfare by the Coalition Government. There are four recent policy changes that suggest that the number of vulnerable customers, using the DWP definition, will significantly increase, and this is a concern because of the difficulties the system has in identifying such customers. The four policies are:

• • The £17.7bn cut in the social security budget (Taylor-Gooby and Stoker, Reference Taylor-Gooby and Stoker2011: 5, 7–8). Cuts on such a scale can be expected, at a minimum, to increase stress and anxiety levels and hence vulnerability, along with financial hardship, amongst a proportion of the customer base.

• • A related issue is the reduction in the number of Jobcentre Plus staff. Between 2009 and early 2011, Jobcentre Plus had cut over 10,000 posts (PCSU, 2011) and in May 2011 it was announced that 17 Benefit Delivery Centres and five Contact Centres would be closed with a loss of 2,400 jobs (Wintour, Reference Wintour2011). The evaluation highlights that Jobcentre Plus staff have significant difficulty in balancing staffing resources and adequately meeting customers’ needs. For vulnerable and non-vulnerable customers, these cuts in staffing are likely to delay the processing of claims and the provision of employment services, such as supporting jobsearch (see above).

• • The introduction of the revised Work Capability Assessment, alongside the Employment Support Allowance, has had the effect of reducing the numbers flowing on to, and retaining entitlement to, incapacity benefit. Some customers withdraw their Employment Support Allowance claim (36 per cent between October 2008 and November 2010), whilst others (39 per cent) fail the medical assessment and can then claim Jobseeker's Allowance (Department for Work and Pensions, 2011: 7). The Work Capability Assessment is highly controversial (see, for example, Gentleman, Reference Gentleman2011; Harris, Reference Harris2011), with claims that people unfit for work, especially those with mental health disabilities, are being denied appropriate support and suffering distress and even harm from the assessment (Work and Pensions Committee, 2011: 16–17). The implication is that the number of vulnerable customers will have been increased. The AJCS evaluation shows that customers with ‘invisible’ mental health conditions are at particular risk of not being identified by staff, a situation that is possibly more likely if the individuals concerned cannot identify themselves as Employment Support Allowance recipients.

• • The planned introduction of Universal Credit by the Coalition Government. This is a more simplified benefit and tax credit system with a Universal Credit replacing selected means-tested benefit and tax credits (Department for Work and Pensions, 2010b), and it can be argued that complexity in the (existing) benefit system disadvantages vulnerable customers. However, the research reported here would suggest the need for some caution in assuming that vulnerable customers would necessarily gain from a more simplified benefit system. If a diverse benefit population is subsumed under a single working age benefit, there is a risk that vulnerable people may lose out if the delivery mechanism is not sufficiently sensitive to their needs. The evaluation suggests that a ‘one size fits all’ customer focus, which is likely with the new benefit, will, unless it goes beyond the AJCS procedures, fail to identify all vulnerable customers claiming Universal Credit.

The Coalition Government's wider cuts will also be penalising vulnerable customers of Jobcentre Plus. Third sector organisations that support vulnerable customers with advocacy and advice services face cuts in public funding, notably from local authorities (see False Economy, 2011). To the extent that these bodies are now less able to support (an increasing number of) vulnerable people, then the more complex and difficult cases that need more than AJCS provision are at risk of being failed by the State.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on an evaluation commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions. The evaluation was conducted by the authors in close collaboration with BMG Research; in particular we are very grateful for the contributions of Karen Kellard and Mary Costello. However, the views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department for Work and Pensions.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Research Conference: The global financial crisis and new governance of labour market policies, Copenhagen, 24–5 June 2010.