Professor Ruth Patrick:

On the question of benefit take-up, while it is not my area of expertise, I want to flag that Scotland, with its devolved powers, has had a very strong emphasis on maximising take-up. I would advise the committee members to look at what Social Security Scotland has been doing. It has the child disability payment and the adult disability payment, which replace the personal independence payments available elsewhere in the UK, but it also has a new payment for children, the Scottish child payment, which has an incredibly high rate of take-up of up to 97%. It would be good to look at that area.

With regard to support for activation, I draw very much on qualitative research and speaking directly to people within my own research. There is very strong evidence that conditionality does not work or help. The constant threat and the pressure are ineffective and, as I said in my opening statement, this governs encounters in a very negative way. Rather than looking at a work coach or job centre adviser as somebody to whom people would go for help, they are seen very much in a punitive role as the person who potentially has the power to take away your money. That impedes the scope to see it as a supportive encounter.

In terms of what is welcome, and I am thinking in particular of women, it is interesting to look back within the UK context to things like the new deal for lone parents. Such measures were effective and we saw if not a massive increase – I must be cautious in my use of language – then at least an increase in employment for lone parents. Given the type of work I do, I would encourage that discussion with people as to what they need and what the barriers are. What is very important is to recognise those structural barriers, particularly for women, to enter and progress in work, and then look at how we dismantle them. This links in with the previous conversation we had about the activation approach that instead says let us look at all of these problems with the people themselves rather than saying people are not doing the right things. As Ms Bennett said earlier, there is the suggestion that people do not know how to budget and they need their credit to be paid monthly so they can budget. In fact, we know that people on low incomes are the best budgeters of anyone out there because they are very well versed and trained in managing very small amounts of money and making that work.

We definitely need support with childcare costs but also with training. One of the sad things about the universal credit system is the expectation that people treat looking for work as a full-time job, which removes the opportunity to do voluntary work or training. In many instances, people are too cautious. Those strong, good opportunities to learn on the job through voluntary work or to do some training after having a child allow people to not only secure any work but good work.