JOBCENTRE Minister admits he hasn’t visited services at risk
THE man responsible for plans to shut half of the Jobcentres in Glasgow has admitted he hasn’t visited any of those affected.
Damian Hinds, UK Employment Minister, said he hasn’t got round to visiting any of the communities where he plans to remove the Jobcentre and force people to travel up to four miles and a trip of more than an hour costing the price of a day’s food.
He also confirmed the city would be left with fewer Jobcentres than two comparable cities in the north of England.
Mr Hinds was also unable to answer a series of basic questions from MPs concerned the closures are ill thought out which will hit some of the poorest people in the country.
He was asked if he had consulted with the Scottish Government or even David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, a cabinet minister and Scotland’s only Tory MP.
He tried four times to dodge the question leaving the MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee clear he had not.
He said the main reason was not based on the needs of people seeking work or claiming benefits but about an opportunity to reduce the floor space that wasn’t being used.
Mr Hinds was unable to say what the plans were to reimburse people with additional travel expenses and even when he tried to pass the question on to his two senior DWP officials they also couldn’t answer.
Tory Labour and Conservative MPs on the committee challenged the plans with one of the Tory members, Anna Soubray, a Nottingham MP stating she didn’t see the sense in some of the plans.
She suggested it was a “desk top exercise” with no real consideration taken for the difficulties people would face getting to the Jobcentre miles away.
Ms Soubray asked on what criteria were the eight in the Glasgow area chosen.
She said: “For a lot of people it will take more than an hour.
“That’s a long times and cost £4.50 and that’s in a city.
“It looks like instead of logical thought they’ve gone ‘we’ll close this one and stick them over here’.”
While critical of the DWP and the process in Glasgow, Ms Soubray had earlier questioned why Glasgow needed so many Jobcentres when other cities had only two or three.
She claimed Manchester had only three, while Stewart McDonald, Glasgow South MP, said it was 14.
WHEN speaking about comparisons, Mr Hinds later said that Glasgow will have more per head of population than Edinburgh, Bristol and Aberdeen, all of which have lower unemployment than Glasgow, but admitted it would be left with fewer than Manchester and Liverpool.
He said: “The proposal for Jobcentres across Glasgow was to try and have a network that works across the city.
“Yes, it’s the case that when we are closing some there are longer distances. That’s why we are consulting to assess the impact.”
When challenged about the distance from Castlemilk to Newlands, he then admitted: “I’ve not been to Castlemilk or any of the Jobcentres in Glasgow.”
He said he has only been in the job since June last year and visits two or three Jobcentres a month, but hasn’t made it to Glasgow yet, despite it being subject to a greater cut than the rest of the UK.
Margaret Ferrier, SNP MP for Rutherglen, whose constituency includes Cambuslang which is losing its Jobcentre, asked why the Scottish Government or the Scottish Secretary was not consulted.
Mr Hinds was asked five times, including by the Committee Chairman, Pete Wishart, in an attempt to get him to give a direct answer, but he failed to do so.
Instead he said officials consult regularly on matters.
He added that Jobcentres were a reserved matter but that Scottish Government ministers were informed of the announcement before it was made.