Citizens Advice Gives Evidence to DSD Committee

Representatives from Citizens Advice were recently invited to give evidence to the Social Development Committee at Stormont as part of their consideration of the Welfare Reform Bill.

Among other things, the Bill proposes to:

• Abolish Income Support;
• Transfer those currently entitled to Income Support to Job Seekers Allowance and, in the process change some of the criteria for JSA for those claimants;
• Reform the Social Fund;
• Introduce mandatory Work Related Activity for Employment and Support Allowance claimants; and
• Introduce new and more stringent sanctions on benefit claimants who are deemed not to have complied with requirements to receive their benefit.

Citizens Advice had previously responded to the Committee in writing stating why, in certain parts, we could not support the proposals of the Bill. Paul Herink, the Director of Information Services  and Lauren Kerr, Information and Policy Officer here at Citizens Advice in Northern Ireland, then attended the Committee and gave Oral Evidence on the issues raised and answered questions put to them by members. In particular they focused on the proposed abolition of income support and the introduction of mandatory work related activity for ESA claimants.

Citizens Advice feels strongly that Job Seekers Allowance is not a suitable alternative benefit for those individuals currently in recipient of income support, and this is particularly true in the case of Lone parents. The Bill proposes to remove the right of lone parents of a child aged under 10 (and aged under 7 from October of 2010) to claim Income Support and will instead give them a right to claim Job Seekers Allowance. Citizens Advice finds this proposal inherently confusing as lone parents of younger children will not need to be seeking work in order to claim the job seekers benefit. This is despite the fact that the Bill was intended to simplify the Benefits system and reduce the number of working age benefits.

Citizens Advice pointed out that this is unlikely to be achieved if the Bill is passed as it stands, and suggested some possible amendments which we felt would make any new system easier to understand for claimants and Social Security Agency Staff alike.