in touch – March 2010

Each month, in touch keeps you up to date with the latest news from Jobcentre Plus.

This month, there’s news of a number of changes which are about to take effect.

Parents on benefits will gain from changes to the rules about child maintenance.

A new Carer’s Credit is being introduced which will enable carers to build up their pensions.

And by the end of this month, all the content on the Jobcentre Pus website will have been moved its new web addresses.

We also have news about an important extension to the Department of Health’s Integrated Care Pilots, and how mystery shoppers help us reach our targets.

Finally, we’ve been clarifying the rules on volunteering while on benefits.

If you have a suggestion for a future edition, or any feedback, please let us know.

Child Maintenance Disregard

Child maintenance income is currently fully disregarded when calculating entitlement to Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and tax credits.

But only £20 a week of any child maintenance income is disregarded when calculating entitlement to:

• Income Support
• Jobseeker’s Allowance (Income Based)
• (Income Related) Employment and Support Allowance.

From 12 April 2010, child maintenance will be fully disregarded for all the above benefits.

The aim is to give parents more incentive to take responsibility for their own child maintenance arrangements.

It will encourage absent parents to pay maintenance because all the money will go to the children rather than the state.

The full disregard applies only to child maintenance income. It does not apply to maintenance paid to support an adult (for example, spousal maintenance) or a sponsored immigrant.

Maintenance paid to support an adult, a sponsored immigrant, or a child who is a sponsored immigrant, is taken fully into account.

If a maintenance payment (whether for children or adults) takes the customer’s capital above the £6,000 threshold, the normal income related benefit capital rules will continue to apply.

Carer’s Credit: what’s changing?

Carer’s Credit is a new National Insurance credit and is not to be confused with a benefit payment.

It will mean thousands more carers will be able to build up their basic State Pension and State Second Pension.

Bereavement Benefits for spouses and civil partners will also be protected.

From 6 April 2010, those caring for disabled people for 20 hours or more a week will be able to claim Carer’s Credit if:

• the person(s) they are looking after receives the middle or highest care component of Disability Living Allowance or any rate of Attendance Allowance or Constant Attendance Allowance, or
• the person or persons have been certified by a health or social care professional as needing the level of care being provided.

People will need to apply for this new weekly credit unless they are receiving Income Support. It will also be given automatically to customers who are entitled to Carer’s Allowance (CA) for certain weeks when they cannot receive CA credits.

Applications for Carer’s Credit cannot be made until 6 April and will need to be on form CC1 which will be in the Carer’s Credit Application Pack. This pack will not be available until 6 April.

After that date it can be obtained through the Carer’s Allowance Unit or the Benefit Enquiry Line.

Alternatively, it will be available to download from the Directgov website.

Closure of Jobcentre Plus website

Previous editions of in touch, have given information on the closure of the Jobcentre Plus website on 31 March 2010.

We have already moved all Jobcentre Plus corporate and policy information to the DWP corporate site. This includes all relevant information for partners and stakeholders.

All employer information has moved to Business Link.

From now on, all customers seeking information on Jobcentre Plus services should be directed to these Directgov pages:

www.direct.gov.uk/benefits
www.direct.gov.uk/jobseekers
www.direct.gov.uk/jobsearch

The move to these sites forms part of a wider initiative to bring all Government services together online.

The improvements we are making to our online services are based on detailed research with customers, some of whom want to help themselves online.

Encouraging those people to do that means our advisers can spend more time, through our existing services, helping disadvantaged customers.

They will also be available to help those who are not comfortable with, or able to use, the internet.

Integrated care extended

Personalised, seamless care services for local people are at the heart of a new self-assessment tool launched by the Department of Health (DoH).

It will provide local health and social care services with the opportunity to join the 16 existing Integrated Care Pilots (ICPs) launched in April 2009.

The aim is to allow care providers to share knowledge and best practice, to prompt debate and discussion, and to challenge policy makers.

The pilots aim to look beyond traditional health and social care boundaries to explore personalised, flexible and better joined-up services.

The expanded programme will enable more sites to set up projects working across a range of sectors, such as children’s services, education, criminal justice and housing.

ICPs are a two-year DoH initiative. For more information on the programme, and to access the new self-assessment tool, visit the DoH website www.dh.gov.uk/integratedcare

The tool will be available to download until the programme ends in March 2011.

Mystery shoppers

Jobcentre Plus has a formally-reported target for its level of customer service. Currently the target is to achieve 86 per cent in the standards of service we have set for our business.

We measure our performance in a number of ways but mainly by using an external contractor to make ‘mystery shopping’ telephone calls and face-to- face visits.

Findings from these calls and visits are used to identify improvements we can make to our services.

The ‘mystery shopper’ works through a pre-arranged scenario with questions and the expected answers.

Operational staff are not given these scenarios which means they are a real test of the advice they provide.

We expect our people to respond appropriately to the shopper’s questions by sourcing the answer from our Customer Service Information Tool.

Our performance against the target is reported on our Targets and performance pages.

Volunteering while on benefits

Jobcentre Plus recognises that volunteering gives jobseekers a better chance of getting paid work.

It helps them gain new skills, become more confident and show employers they can keep regular hours.

We are working with Volunteering England and other voluntary organisations to improve awareness of the rules on volunteering while on benefits and remove the barriers which some people face.

An updated leaflet is now available which provides Jobcentre Plus customers with up-to-date information.

The leaflet points out that people on benefits are able to undertake voluntary work and that, in nearly all cases, their benefits are not affected.

The leaflet, “Volunteering while getting benefits”, can be ordered through the DWP website DWP Catalogue. Its reference number is DWP1023.

About in touch

in touchaims to provide you with short summaries of the latest news, progress of our modernisation programme, forthcoming changes to benefit rules, updates on performance, as well as news on important policy issues which affect our shared customers. in touchcomplements Touchbase, the quarterly publication from DWP, by providing a monthly focus on Jobcentre Plus related issues.

If someone you know might like to receive in touch, they can subscribe online. Jobcentre Plus will not pass on any details to a third party. Your information will only be used to provide you with information on Jobcentre Plus and DWP business.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please email the editor (including your name, job and organisation).