Job advisors could be placed in food banks, Iain Duncan Smith has said, revealing that a trial of the scheme is already underway in Manchester.
The Work and Pensions Secretary told MPs that his department had already received “very strong feedback” about the trial. Advisors could give food bank clients guidance on accessing benefits and seeking work, a DWP official said. Problems accessing benefits, and cuts to welfare payments, are among the most common reasons people give for visit a food bank.
“We are already getting very strong feedback about it, where they would be able to check if somebody comes in and says ‘I haven’t got a payment',” Mr Duncan Smith told the Work and Pensions select committee.
“I am hoping if this works – and it sounds like it is working – then we will certainly want to roll it out to all food banks,” he added.
Work and benefits advisors are sometimes posted in food banks, but usually under arrangements between the food bank and local services. Formalising the process nationally would represent a significant acknowledgment by the Government that food banks may be here to stay.
Labour MP and committee chair Frank Field said that in a Birkenhead food bank, where an adviser was posted “90 per of people did not return because the person sorted out their benefit problems”.
“So I would have thought that the sooner you can roll it out, Secretary of State, the better,” he added.
