Cabinet to approve welfare scheme to allow lone parents re-enter workforce

Lone parents who will be losing one-parent family payments this year will be spared the toughest conditions that apply to jobseeker’s allowance under a transitional arrangement that will be discussed by Government today.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton will bring a memo to Cabinet today on the Social Welfare Bill, which will be published later this week. The Bill will give effect to decisions in this area made in the budget last December.

One of the most significant budgetary changes was to the one-parent family payment, with the age threshold of the youngest child reduced from 18 (or 22 if the child is still in full-time education) to seven, over a phased period of years.

The arrangement would mean that those who would no longer qualify for the one-parent payment would instead qualify for jobseeker’s allowance. Some 9,000 will fall into that category from July.

Poor outcomes
The plan was that it would help activate single parents to return to the jobs market. Research had pointed to the one-parent family allowance having poor outcomes in terms of tackling poverty and social exclusion and of encouraging economic independence.

Ms Burton had made the point within Government that it could not simply be a case of the parents in question losing their entitlement to the one-parent allowance and then going straight on to jobseeker’s allowance if they could not find a job.

To qualify for jobseeker’s allowance, a person must satisfy the “genuinely seeking work” condition.

Ms Burton argued that it would be a very difficult requirement for some lone parents, who might never have worked, whose educational qualifications might be limited or who could have childcare issues.

To accommodate this move, the first cohort of single parents whose entitlement to the allowance ceases from July will transfer to a new arrangement called jobseeker’s transition.

The terms of the scheme are less onerous than those of jobseeker’s allowance, especially in relation to genuinely seeking work, which essentially imposes a condition on the jobseeker to be available for full-time work at all times.

Ms Burton has persuaded her ministerial colleagues that this is not a reality for some lone parents who, until their child is older, will be able to work only part-time.

Lone parents will be entitled to use the new Intreo job activation service, which offers employment supports to help people get back into the workplace.

Activation support
As part of this process they will be profiled, have a group engagement and develop a personal development plan in conjunction with their case officer. This personal plan will identify suitable education, training and employment programmes that will enhance their skill sets and make them more employable.

This activation support would be unavailable if the parent they remained on one-parent allowance.

Lone parents will also be able, when seeking to return to work, to avail of the extra childcare places announced in the budget.

But under new obligations, parents who do not engage in the activation process will be subject to the same penalty rates and disallowances as every other jobseeker.