IAIN Duncan Smith was accused of trying to turn food banks into an “outpost” for Jobcentre Plus staff after he told MPs he would like to see a trial scheme rolled out nationwide.
The work and pensions secretary said he would like to see the trial scheme at the Lalley Welcome Centre in Collyhurst, north-east Manchester extended after it was given “very strong feedback”.
Appearing in front of Westminster’s work and pensions select committee yesterday, Iain Duncan Smith said the trial, which had been in place for the past three weeks, seemed to be proving successful.
SNP MP Mhairi Black, a member of the committee, accused Duncan Smith of trying to turn food banks into an “outpost” for Jobcentre Plus. Instead, she said, ministers should be focusing on eradicating the need for food banks by changing their policies, which were “driving people into crisis situations.”
Duncan Smith told the committee: “I am trialling at the moment a job advisor situating themselves in the food bank for the time that food bank is open. We’re already getting very strong feedback about that.”
He continued: “If this works and if other food banks are willing to encompass this I would like to roll this out across the UK.”
Robert Devereux, the DWP’s permanent secretary, told the committee his department had two advisers working one day a week in the Manchester centre.
He said: “These work coaches have teamed up with local job clubs and they’re spending more of their time pointing people to vacancies and to work than they are in fixing their benefits.”
Frank Field, the Labour committee chair said that in the Birkenhead food bank, when an adviser was stationed there, “ninety per of people did not return because the person sorted out their benefit problems. I would have thought that the sooner you can roll it out, secretary of state, the better.”
Dave Simmers, from the Food Banks Partnership Aberdeen said: “Any Jobcentre staff involved in such a position would need to have the attitude and outlook that was conducive to a food bank setting, where a particular ethos will prevail. And that’s a different ethos, I would respectfully suggest, to a Jobcentre or the DWP.”
A spokesman for the Trussell Trust, which operates more than 400 food banks across the UK, said: “We welcome the Government’s interest in exploring new ways that the DWP might help people at food banks. But we would also suggest that there first needs to be a dialogue between the DWP and The Trussell Trust network about the possible challenges and opportunities that hosting DWP advisers in food banks could afford.”
Sister Rita Lee, who works at the Lalley Welcome Centre said she had given Duncan Smith the idea: “I wrote to the minister and the Prime Minister and received very nice letters from them both, but it was Iain Duncan Smith who said we could have a meeting with him in London. I think it’s a brilliant, brilliant thing that the Government’s doing [this].”
Food-bank use in Scotland hit a record high last year. Simmers says his organisation expects to give out 25,000 food packages in Aberdeen this year.
Black said food bank use was a result of the government’s “ideological obsession with austerity”.
The SNP MP said: “It seems ironic that the UK Government will not fund foodbanks and ministers time and again refuse to acknowledge the links between their policies and the increase in need for foodbanks yet they are now trying to use them as an outpost for Jobcentre Plus staff.
“Iain Duncan Smith should concentrate on trying to eradicate the need for food banks by changing the policies driving people into crisis.”
She added: “The need for food banks is a clear indication that the Tories’ ideological obsession with austerity is not working which is why the SNP remain fundamentally opposed to their regressive policies.”
The National View: Suspicion over DWP’s food bank ‘outposts’ is understandable
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