Iain Duncan Smith - The ‘quiet man’ finds his voice?

Now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what can we expect from Iain Duncan Smith?  Inclusion Policy Officer, Rosanna Singler, attempts to predict his actions over the next few years by looking at the policies and speeches he made prior to his appointment.      

A man motivated by his passion for “[improving] the quality of life of the worst off in society"[1], Iain Duncan Smith is, by his own admission, no longer interested in climbing the greasy pole of politics and we can expect his actions to be driven by his principles – the most significant of which are set out in this piece.

After being exposed to poverty and deprivation upon visiting the Easterhouse estate on the eastern outskirts of Glasgow, IDS established the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in 2004 to seriously investigate the causes of poverty and the best means of eradicating it. He has now been lured back into mainstream politics on the understanding he is able to put into practice the policy recommendations he made at CSJ."[2]

Going against what some might see as a more traditional Conservative approach to welfare, Iain Duncan Smith’s views are more tilted towards increasing support. Sanctions still figure, but are reserved as a back-up for those who might want to play the system:

“...sanctions alone won’t work, people are more likely to change their behaviour through a balance of positive incentives alongside sanctions, and we need to remember this when addressing worklessness.”[3]

As part of this approach, bringing more people off of Incapacity Benefit (IB) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA), would figure largely, on the guiding principle that keeping people on these benefits means they get forgotten about[4].

In a period of serious cuts to public spending, the new Welfare Minister has signaled he will work hard to ensure ‘increased support’ will translate into significant financial investment. In an interview in the Guardian in May this year he concedes that the investment he feels is necessary will cost more in the short term, but he is confident that, "the short-term costs are minuscule, and the potential savings are enormous". Furthermore, at his first ever press speech as Secretary of State, he promised to continue to advocate financial investment in his department[5]. The scheme was thought to cost as much as £3bn, but Duncan Smith has stressed that those figures are going down since he has had access to government statistics and has pointed out that £2m-3m a year is currently spent on tax credit overpayments, causing unnecessary expenditure.[6]

The Social Return on Investment concept is something which strongly underlies his approach to spending. What this means is that all providers looking to carry out work for his department will need to pass a, “strict test: if they fail to improve people's life chances they will be scrapped.”[7]His views on this have been influenced by thinking in the US,[8]“[where] they have started in a very disciplined way to say programmes that you implement in government [must] have a return to the government in the longer term. That return is through life change."[9]

It is important to note that although he believes in increased investment, he is also anchored to a view that the welfare state has gotten too large and government should transform to enable individuals, families and communities to ‘freely co-operate to help themselves and others.’ The following quote features on CSJ’s website:

"Community entrepreneurs are overcoming the social challenges that are defeating the agencies of the state. The war on poverty can be won if government gets off the back of the armies of compassion and helps them to succeed."

This is explained further in another speech Iain Duncan Smith  made at Third Sector magazine's 'Britain’s Most Admired Charities' Awards, in which he stated:

“I am not against increased government funding of the sector per se. However I do believe that government’s command and control of large VCOs – exercised primarily through the growing contract culture – is sometimes weakening and compromising [the third sector's] work." He cites a recent report by the Association of Charitable Foundations which argues that what “has traditionally motivated people to form voluntary and community organisations, and then to take action to correct some injustice which has made them angry, or fill some gap in services which has moved them has been neutralised by having to perform public services, for 'financial survival'."[10]

From this it is likely that the community and voluntary sector will feature prominently in the single Work Programme but possibly less as delivery agents of the state through government contracts. In a speech to the third sector (reference here) he highlighted a need to move towards funding which would allow the third sector to retain their freedom through ‘stakeholder-directed funding’, ‘Voucher-based funding’ and matched funding. Moreover, he appeared to favour locally responsive charities, over national charities, which he, possibly critically,  described as ‘big charity’[11].

His experiences at CSJ means that Iain Duncan Smith has a wider approach to reducing poverty than focusing solely on getting people back into work. The ‘pathways to poverty’, as he sees it, is the lifestyle people lead, these are listed in a CSJ report as: “family breakdown; educational failure; drug and alcohol addiction; severe personal indebtedness; economic dependency – caused by intergenerational worklessness.”[12]

The seriousness with which IDS treats this subject of family breakdown is displayed through the CSJ proposal of enhancing the couple element in Working Tax Credit introducing a transferrable tax allowance for married couples.[13]

Economic dependency is also something which plays a large part in his thinking as a significant factor in creating and sustaining long-term unemployment. He has announced in the Guardian recently his intentions to reform the benefits system so people can break free of a life stuck on benefits, making it simpler to navigate and introducing a slower withdrawal of benefits once people are in work[14]so they are actually better off in work. He believes making work pay is the biggest contribution the state can make to incentivise people to take up work opportunities.

Another of the lifestyle factors IDS has concerns with is social housing, arguing that , “the back-to-work needs of workless households must be put at the centre of welfare provision...making intensive back-to-work support available to every economically inactive person of working age who could benefit from it”. [15] Moreover, he believes that social housing must be flexible and support the aspiration of tenants who want to work. This also exemplifies his support for joined-up approach to delivery.

Another key factor Iain Duncan Smith is likely to want to tackle is indebtedness, declaring that one of the main obstacles for many jobless people considering a return to work is the prospect of having to repay debts frozen whilst benefits are being claimed. This is an issue he feels very strongly about, declaring in a speech that, “Indebtedness is also the biggest single cause of family breakdown, one of the key drivers of poverty. The impact this can make in strengthening families and even helping people return to work should not be underestimated.”

Iain Duncan Smith is a man driven by his principles, which in many ways makes him a lot easier to read than a lot of politicians – those wishing to predict his actions over the next few years will find more than just a few clues by looking at the policies and speeches he made prior to becoming Secretary of State.       

Rosanna Singler, Policy Officer, Inclusion.     
 

[1]http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/26/iain-duncan-smith-interview-welfare

[2]Ibid

[3]http://www.iainduncansmith.org/article.aspx?id=10&ref=149

[4]http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/26/iain-duncan-smith-interview-welfare

[5]Ibid

[6]http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/26/coalition-welfare-reforms-duncan-smith

[7]Ibid

[8]http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=436

[9]Ibid

[10]http://www.iainduncansmith.org/article.aspx?id=23&ref=40

[11]http://www.iainduncansmith.org/article.aspx?id=23&ref=40

[12]"Dynamic Benefits: Towards Welfare That Works" A Policy Report by the CSJ Economic Dependency Working Group

[13]http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=227

[14]http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/26/iain-duncan-smith-interview-welfare

[15]http://www.iainduncansmith.org/article.aspx?id=10&ref=149