North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has questioned the First Minister this week over his Government’s backing for a project to shape the support for disabled people and people with health conditions.
Raising the matter in the Assembly Chamber yesterday, Mr Isherwood spoke of the good work being carried out by the Department of Work and Pensions Community Partnership team for North and Mid-Wales and asked what the Welsh Government is doing to support the programme.
Questioning the First Minister, he said:
“As you might be aware, the Department for Work and Pensions has recruited Community Partner Teams from people with lived experience of disability from external bodies, primarily third sector bodies, on a 12-month project to shape the support for disabled people and people with health conditions. Last Friday, at the Assembly Cross-party Autism Group meeting held in Wrexham, there was a presentation from the DWP Community Partnership Team for North and Mid Wales - again, not civil servants; these are people who work in the disability sector, some of whom are disabled themselves. They told us that they are providing advice and training to job coaches in Job Centres to enable a better understanding and support, but it's only a 12-month project - 2018 to 2019. What, if any, involvement or oversight has the Welsh Government had in this programme, and will you join the Cross-party Autism Group in considering a call for that 12-month programme to be extended?”
In his reply Carwyn Jones said “it's not clear whether that programme is one that we have funded directly through local authorities.”
He added: “ I can say that around £3 million per annum of debt advice funding currently administered by the Money Advice Service via the financial levy will be devolved to Welsh Government when the single financial guidance body will be set up. We expect that to happen in January of next year. And that, of course, will assist us in making sure that we have the right level of support in place”.
Mr Isherwood added: “DWP Officials have been working with the devolved administrations since March 2012 on plans for Universal Credit rollout - and the UK Government issued the ‘Universal Credit Local Support Services Framework’ in February 2013, developed between the DWP and partners including the Welsh Local Government Association, to help claimants not yet ready to budget for themselves and those who need alternative payment arrangement.
“When we heard, for example, that in Wales, the average value of rent arrears under Universal Credit was more than 3x the UK average, we have to ask the Welsh Government what has gone wrong here.”