Using SSAC to advise on annual uprating of benefits would risk contaminating its ability to act as an impartial adviser on other aspects of government policy
Committee chair advises MPs that SSAC’s focus is instead on the adequacy of benefits over the longer-term to help it ‘shine a spotlight on issues and questions that a government of the day may not be adequately thinking about’
Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) chair Dr Stephen Brien has told MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee that using SSAC to advise on the annual uprating of benefits would risk contaminating its ability to act as an impartial adviser on other aspects of government policy.
In an evidence session last week as part of its inquiry into benefit levels in the UK – that is looking at the fundamental principles governing the benefits system by investigating whether a consensus can be reached for what an 'adequate' level of support should be – the Work and Pensions Committee questioned a range of witnesses, that included Dr Brien and former Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
Opening the evidence session, chair of the Select Committee Sir Stephen Timms asked Sir Iain whether he thought there is a case for having some kind of independent advisory body to advise the government on what level social security benefits should be set at. In response, Sir Iain said –
‘There is no shortage in the advice that the government get … The problem is that if you set up extra bodies – we have the Social Security Advisory Committee which I remember when I was Secretary of State was not backward in coming forward. It covered pretty much all these areas. We talked endlessly about benefit levels in sectoral areas as opposed to across the board. At the end of it all, these are political decisions.’
Moving on to question Dr Brien, Sir Stephen asked whether SSAC could be the independent body that gets the job of advising on what the levels of benefits ought to be. However, in response, Dr Brien warned that a key problem with the approach would be –
'… the extent to which a role of SSAC to judge benefit levels risks contaminating SSAC’s ability to act as an impartial adviser on other aspects of government policy and execution …
Our main influence is over the policymaking process as opposed to the political or policy intent of the regulation. I have always made it clear to departmental officials and indeed Ministers that our job as an independent body – that is, a non-political body – is not to challenge the fundamental policy intent of any particular bit of regulation.'
To serve as an example, Dr Brien explained that –
'If on the one day I issue a report on behalf of the committee arguing for certain levels of benefit changes that the government of the day may or may not be comfortable with – and that would be quite a public position – it would be difficult for me the following afternoon to write to or to meet the Secretary of State and give advice on other issues where a certain temperature has risen as a result of a report. A body like SSAC could play a role if given a clear mandate, but it runs the risk of contaminating SSAC’s other important responsibilities in terms of being a policy and decision-making auditing body. Those two do not always sit well together.'
When questioned further about SSAC not providing advice on the annual uprating Order and adequacy of benefit rates, Dr Brien explained that the way the SSAC has been thinking about this is that –
'… day to day, year to year, the government of the day have a political mandate and are very consciously making decisions about adequacy and have the political authority to do that. Over a multi-year timeframe there is a risk of creep, and what we have found important and helpful for us to do is to focus a lot more on that longer-term structural drift to point out there are issues there that have emerged.'
Dr Brien added that –
'What we are seeking to do is to shine a spotlight on the issues and questions that a government of the day may not be adequately thinking about as opposed to not challenging them on the very specific question, which they are thinking about, which is what this year’s uprating should be. By putting it into a bigger context we can pose some challenges as to how they should think about that more political question.'
The transcript of the Committee's evidence session on benefit levels in the UK is available from parliament.uk