Welfare reforms: Complaint to BRE

Regarding the welfare reforms, some of us have put in a formal complaint to the Better Regulations Executive about the scope and breadth of DWP's consultation targets. It's a bit late in the day, but BRE is supposed to respond within 15 days of our email which will take us to the day before the first changes are due to be implemented (25th of this month). Ideally, we want another consultation with the most important stakeholders (individual Income Support claimants) being informed about it this time, so that they can have a say in these life-changing decisions. Letters have also gone to MPs in West Yorkshire, asking them to press for a delayed implementation date pending the result of the complaint.

If you want to help in delaying these reforms to allow for more, essential thinking and debating time, please write to your MP, asking them to press for a postponement of the first implementation date pending the outcome of our complaint to BRE. You can also ask them to sign Lynne Jones's Early Day Motion (ED 2434). If you've never done it before, writing to your MP is very quick and easy via http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ . You just key in your postcode, write your message then confirm it by email. Your MP is obliged to at least read and reply to your message.

You could also make a complaint to BRE yourself, which might strengthen the call for a rethink. (Email address: regulation@berr.gsi.gov.uk) . It is in keeping with their Code of Practice on Consultation (http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file47158.pdf) to expect DWP to inform all IS claimants about the consultations by post, which they have neglected to do up to press.

This is what we sent to BRE:

Dear Sirs,

We would like to draw your urgent attention to the matter of imminent key changes to the Welfare System, particularly in regard to the public consultations: In Work, Better Off (DWP, July 2007) and No One Written Off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility (DWP, July 2008).

These consultations, whilst being open to responses from all interested parties, nevertheless failed to effectively represent a significant section of primary stakeholders and a group whose lives will be directly affected if the changes take place: lone parents on Income Support.

We feel that DWP was negligent in disseminating the necessary information about the process of Welfare Reform, including the two relevant consultations, and that DWP could and should have written to every Income Support claimant to inform them of the consultations, so that they were in a position to have a say about this life-changing issue.

Lone parents on Income Support also have to attend regular Work-Focused Interviews with DWP staff at job centres and have been routinely misinformed about the process of changes, with many being told that the decisions had all been made and would definitely be executed. We do not know of any lone parent who has been told about the consultations by their Lone Parent Advisor, so DWP has failed to “be proactive in disseminating consultation documents” at least via these two glaringly obvious channels of contact with this key group of stakeholders.

We would like BRE, therefore, to urgently consider the overall validity of the aggregate responses to the two consultations in question, bearing in mind that the first phase of change is due to be implemented later this month, that an Early Day Motion has been laid down by Lynne Jones, MP (http://tinyurl.com/6ds6ew EDM 2434 SOCIAL SECURITY [LONE PARENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS] REGULATIONS 2008 - 06.11.2008) and that the Social Security Advisory Committee itself recommended that the Government does not proceed with the regulations (http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/do ... 0/7480.pdf) .

In conclusion, DWP has failed to notify the majority of lone parents of the two consultations pertaining to the changes and is therefore in breach of BRE’s Code of Practice on Consultation, criterion 4.

Yours faithfully,

G S Kilner

Founder: West Yorkshire Home Educating Lone Parents (WYHELP).

NB: This is a formal complaint.

It was a very disappointing result from the House of Lords Grand Committee yesterday. My impression of things after reading the minutes is that some serious bits of misinformation were laid out by the supporters of the reform to confuse those who were opposed to sections of the reform.

The only positive thing is that the Lords say the changes will be phased in from March 2009 rather than implemented almost immediately. This gives us some time to exert more pressure for change. I'm also hoping the worsening economic climate will give the politicians the message that now is the wrong time for these draconian welfare reforms.

I have written to my MP asking them to sign the Early Day Motion, although I'm not holding my breath.