With social security more important than ever, we need to look at devolved provision for people on low incomes, argues Victoria Winckler.
The actions taken to try to control the spread of Covid-19 have put the UK’s benefit system in the spotlight. Low rates of statutory sick pay and Universal Credit matter suddenly matter to millions of people unable to work. That Universal Credit could be increased by £20 a week after years of being frozen showed just how dramatically the public mood and political will have changed.
The actions have also revealed the critical importance of devolved provision for people on low incomes. Most immediately, the closure of schools has raised real concerns about the loss of provision of Free School Meals for children from low income families. Without them, families are faced with the cost of additional meals – an estimated £30 a week for a family with two children. Over the six-week summer holidays, many children have an inadequate diet while their parents sometimes skip meals altogether. With some forecasting that schools will not re-open until September, the strain on family budgets will be huge.
Free School Meals might be the most visible support given to low-income households, but there is a plethora of other schemes too. Pupil Deprivation Grant – Access helps with the cost of school uniform and other items. Educational Maintenance Allowance helps with the costs of learning for 16-18 year olds. Discretionary Housing Payment helps with housing costs. NEST helps with the costs of energy. And the Discretionary Assistance Council Tax Reduction is self-explanatory. These schemes have developed for many different reasons and very often have their own eligibility criteria and administrative arrangements. The large number of schemes might make sense to bureaucrats but they make very little sense to families faced with having to make multiple different applications for help.
On a bigger scale, the plethora of schemes is inefficient. Resources are wasted checking eligibility. For example, in some areas families have to apply separately for Pupil Deprivation Grant – Access and Free School Meals even though the eligibility criteria and the organisation administering them are the same. We even found some local authorities where officers scrutinised numerous receipts for families’ purchases of school uniform before paying the grant. In this instance we wondered whether the costs of administration outweighed the value payments to families.
Many schemes are also ineffective and do not fulfil their objectives. We are particularly concerned that some support does not reach all the people they are intended to help. Only about three-quarters of pupils take up their entitlement to Free School Meals, with the proportion being even lower in secondary school than in primary. Other schemes such as Council Tax Reduction have equally low take-up rates, while some, like the Discretionary Assistance Fund, have worryingly low approval rates. While families are struggling to make ends meet, money languishes in public coffers.
Perhaps most alarming of all is that many devolved schemes do little to lift people out of poverty. One Welsh benefit – Educational Maintenance Allowance – has been frozen for nearly a decade. Neither the thresholds against which a learner’s family income is assessed nor the grant the learner receives has increased since 2011/12. Not only has inflation eroded the value of the £30 a week grant, it also has to cover more daily expenses. Many learners now attend further education colleges instead of school, so do not receive free school meals or home-to-school transport.
We propose that this plethora of existing schemes should be replaced with a coherent system of devolved benefits and support. The objective of the support should be to loosen the grip of poverty. Where existing provision works well, it should be retained and integrated with other support schemes. Where existing provision is ineffective or inefficient, it should be streamlined and reformed. And where there are gaps in provision, they should be filled.
We are calling the resulting system a ‘Welsh Benefits System’. What is really important is that this is within existing, devolved powers and already has established budgets and administrative capacity. It does not require the UK Government to devolve any aspect of social security; it does not depend on successful negotiations of a new financial envelope; and it does not require the creation of new bodies to administer it. It is within our collective gift to design and deliver a better deal for low income households right now.
We have already called for the value of the Educational Maintenance Allowance to be increased to £45 a week and for learning grants for adult learners in further education to be put on the same footing as support for higher education students. Over the coming months we will be publishing our proposals in respect of children, housing and health.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has exposed how much we all need the state to support us in times of need. The support provided by devolved services are no less important than the UK social security system – they need urgent reform to deliver.
Victoria Winckler is director of the Bevan Foundation. For more details see www.bevanfoundation.org/publications/the-case-for-a-welsh-benefits-system/