The Curse of Wikipedia

I’ve not finished reading the Leveson report yet – Lord Justice Leveson is not a man to use one word when fifteen will do, and I have two volumes still to go. I was amused to read that the report has been led astray by Wikipedia, treating it as a reliable source without any attribution. This is the sort of thing I tell my students off about. The names of the founders of the Independent had been tampered with by someone from California, and Leveson used the adulterated list.

I contributed to Wikipedia myself a few years ago, adding to articles on the welfare state, social security, the Poor Law and such like, but I haven’t touched it for some time. The sticking point was the article on “Socialism”, which took it for granted that socialism was equivalent to Marxism. I put in five alternative definitions of socialism, with appropriate academic references; it was all deleted. (There is a short version of this on my website.) So I put it up again, puzzled, and it was deleted again, by people who were not prepared to accept that anything apart from their belief should be included. Then I put up a flag to say “this article is disputed”, and that was taken down too. There was no effective system for moderation, and I gave up. Wikipedia’s article on socialism is still desperately misleading. I have no idea whether this happens very widely, but it says something about ‘the wisdom of crowds’ – and the reliability of Wikipedia as a source.

For what it’s worth, the alternative definitions of the ‘welfare state’ have been taken down, too. US contributors find it difficult to understand that in much of Europe, the “welfare state” is not simply run by government.

"Poverty in perspective"

A new report from Demos offers a distinctive way of looking at the experience of poverty in Britain. The report identifies fifteen different household types, in three main cohorts or categories: families with children, working age people without children and pensioners. The report is strongest in relation to child poverty, where the statistical material is backed by qualitative descriptions of the circumstances.

It’s a very good, serious report, and it’s convincing in parts. It should certainly make the government hesitate about its recent proposals to “measure” child poverty in much cruder terms. I have two main reservations, however. The first concerns the principle of segmentation, which tends to imply that the categories (several are given jokey names) are predictable and stable. One of the central messages about the dynamics of poverty in other studies has been that poverty is multi-faceted and complex, that people move in and out of different patterns of deprivation, and that there is often a “web” of deprivation where people struggle to redefine their circumstances, only to find that they are trapped by another problem. People’s lives are complex, and attempts to simplify and classify inevitably tend to stereotype.

The second problem lies in the recommendations for policy, some of which are based unavoidably in the characteristics of people who are poor. One has to ask whether the problems considered – low wages, insecure employment, poor pensions – are really something that should be addressed at the level of the individual.

Will Universal Credit reduce error?

The DWP reports that benefit fraud is dropping. Lord Freud comments:

“Clearly something is dramatically wrong with the current system when more money is lost because of mistakes by claimants than because of fraud. With Universal Credit bringing together six benefits into one, the system will be much easier for individuals to understand, and less vulnerable to human error.”

What is there about Universal Credit, though, that will reduce error? Universal Credit will be a highly complex, tapered means-tested benefit, where claimants are unable to tell month by month exactly what they will be entitled to. That is the problem, for example, with Housing Benefit. Here are a few figures, taken from the DWP statistics.

Fraud Claimant error Official error
Housing Benefit 1.4% 2.8% 0.4%
JSA 3.4% 0.4% 2.3%
Incapacity Benefit 2.4% 0.9% 1.2%
Pension Credit 1.6% 2% 1.9%
Retirement Pension 0.1% 0% 0.1%

The first line shows the rates of fraud, claimant error and official error in Housing Benefit, which will be part of the UC system. So will the benefits in the next two lines, where claimant error is lower and both fraud and official error are higher. But while the rules for unemployment and sick people will still be there, the design of payments on UC follows Housing Benefit.

I’ve followed this with figures for two other benefits that won’t be part of Universal Credit: Pension Credit, and Retirement Pension. They are the only benefits where it’s possible to compare the impact of different benefit designs delivered to the same group of people – in this case, pensioners. And Pension Credit, which is the means-tested benefit, is at least sixteen times more likely to engender fraud and error than the National Insurance equivalent. If the government wants less fraud and error, it has to move away from means-testing.

Mandatory work for sick people

The Telegraph reported two weeks ago – I commented on it then – that the government was considering extending work tests for sick people. Yesterday the DWP announced “voluntary” work placements, but added: “As well as voluntary work experience, in some situations, having taken into account an individual’s circumstances, a Jobcentre Plus adviser or Work Programme provider may feel that an appropriate mandatory work placement – which must be of benefit to the community – would be helpful.” Sanctions will also apply to those who refuse to take part in work-related activity, whatever that is – there are still no regulations to define the circumstances where such activity might be deemed to be appropriate.

The minister, Mark Hoban, explained: “People on sickness benefits who do all they can to improve their chances of moving back in to a job have nothing to worry about; they will get their benefits and we will do all we can to help. But in the small number of cases where people refuse to stick to their part of the bargain, it’s only right there are consequences.” So there it is; people on ESA who are too sick to work, who meet the requirements of the work capacity assessment, who it is not reasonable to expect to work – those are the qualifying conditions – are going to be required to work nevertheless.

Bad news for the Work Programme

Despite a bullish report from the DWP, the Work Programme appears to be failing. This is not a surprise. The Office for Government Commerce had expressed doubts about the DWP’s ability to manage this kind of contract effectively. Comments from the National Audit Office in relation to Pathways to Work suggested that private contractors had not appreciated the difficulty of dealing with the client group, that the effect of out-sourcing and sub-contracting had been to reduce accountability and control, and that Jobcentre Plus actually did the job better. (Hardly anyone, in the DWP’s outcome figures, is coming off ESA and into work.) Jonathan Portes was suggesting six months ago that the Work Programme was appearing to slow down the rate at which people got back to work. That impression seems to be supported by the headline figures, which show that the Work Programme produced worse outcomes than doing nothing.

The failure of the programme rests, not just in its management, but in its basic concept. Improving employability does not, and can not, make jobs; it can only improve the relative position of participants in competition with others. The main way through the problem is to stimulate the demand – by injecting resources into the economy, by commissioning work, or by creating jobs. The government has set its face against all three approaches.

Leaving the Work Programme

It has been announced that one in ten people referred to the Work Programme, 73,260 up to last April, have been subject to sanctions for failing to avail themselves of the opportunities. Or it has not been announced, depending on your point of view, despite the very specific figures and the ministerial comment: the Telegraph explains that this is what “the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is expected to confirm next week when it publishes the first official statistics on the overall success of the programme.” If this is an official announcement, it would be another clear breach of the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice.

We know what the Minister Mark Hoban thinks of the figures; he thinks it shows that people are scrounging. “Sadly some people are clearly very determined to avoid having to get job at all.” There are other possibile explanations. It might be, for example, that people think they are better able to find work if they’re not on the programme. It might be that the tens of thousands of people who have been forced to claim JSA instead of incapacity benefits are too sick to work, and now they are being cut off benefits altogether. It might be that people are being sanctioned for not replying to letters. It might be that some have found work – because, despite the propaganda, that’s what most unemployed people do. It might be that people who are being cut off from benefit are being forced into crime or prostitution instead – it’s happened before. We just don’t know, which is why we need the detailed evidence and statistics.

Freud on risk

Lord Freud, criticising the “dreadful” welfare system, thinks that poor people don’t take enough risks. There’s a basic distinction to make here between risk and vulnerability. Risk is about the chance that something will go wrong; vulnerability is about the harm that happens when it does. Bankers like Lord Freud can take risks, because they can recover from them if they go bad. Poor people can’t take the risks that bankers do because they’re vulnerable when things go wrong. The point of social protection is to make people less vulnerable; the problem with the personalisation and conditionality he advocates is that it’s making them more so.

Freud dismisses the argument that he hasn’t tried to live on a low income himself: “you don’t have to be the corpse”, he says, “to go to a funeral.” Maybe not, but it’s an awkward place to be if you don’t know who you’re burying.

Getting ready for a crash

Several pieces have appeared today expressing fears about the Universal Credit system. The voluntary sector expressed its fears yesterday about vulnerability, debt and the impact of cuts. The Chartered Institute of Housing is worried about the effects on the poorest claimants. Several of today’s reports (here’s an example) are prompted by the Work and Pensions Committee, which is urging the DWP to revise the timetable. A coruscating analysis from opposition MP Stephen Timms points to problems in the design of the system, IT, the link with PAYE and the timetable. It’s beginning to feel like living a street where all the burglar alarms are being set off in rapid succession.

It’s in no-one’s interests to see this system fail, and while I don’t go along with the general consensus that it looked like a good idea at the time, the obvious question now is what can be done to limit the damage. The first thing is to do less. Any one part of the government’s programme – the Work Programme, monthly payments, medical reassessment, CTB decentralisation, integration with PAYE – is ambitious. So pick one element, get it in place, and secure it before moving on. To make monthly payments work, for example, the delivery of the system needs common time periods, budget support, negotiation with landlords and utility companies, and an IT system that supports it. This is quite enough to be getting on with. It will take two years in itself – do it, by all means, but don’t try at the same time to introduce other measures, such as direct payments, that will cut across it.

Second, slow things down. There’s no good reason to begin with instant adjustment and real time processing. Offer benefit entitlements for three or six months, so that constant declarations and amendments aren’t needed. (It’s been done before, for Family Credit).

Third, protect vulnerable claimants. Limit the degree of personalisation, which creates uncertainty. If the system is going to be based in IT, take steps to ensure they have access to IT. Reduce people’s vulnerability to debt by amending the laws on short term debt. Revise the overpayment rules.

Fourth, ask people. The surest way to avoid making an unholy mess of benefit reform is to consult with the people who know – and the surest way to guaranteee a crash is to keep things secret.

Newsnight Scotland

SCVO have expressed concern about the impact of benefit cuts on claimants in Scotland, and I was interviewed last night for Newsnight Scotland about the issues. Whoever edited the programme was very kind to me – I have a dreadful cold and wasn’t exactly full of energy – but part of what they left out was evidence from the CABx, who are receiving not just more problems relating to benefits, but problems of greater complexity as claimants are subject to medical assessments, reduced entitlements and penalities.

The figures I referred to, for expenditure in Scotland and other parts of Britain, are here.

Stigma and benefits

A new report by Ben Baumberg, Kate Bell and Declan Gaffney highlights the problem of stigma in benefits. I’m not going to say much about this report, because I’ve had some involvement with its production; I discussed the issues with Elizabeth Finn Care before the research was commissioned and I was on the advisory group. The book I wrote on stigma nearly thirty years ago is free downloadable here.

The report has also prompted a useful short piece on representations of welfare in the press on the Guardian website.