Social Security Experience Panels: agency buildings

Location of agency buildings

Previous research with Experience Panel members has suggested that the locations of physical sites are highly important for people who interact with the agency^[16]. This is particuarly true for disabled clients, who may struggle to reach a building if it is situated without consideration of their access requirements.

Getting to the building

When discussing agency buildings, a well-located and sufficiently large car park was a recurring theme amongst respondents. Participants spoke of the need for car parking not just when talking about the location of agency buildings, but also when discussing co-location and accessibility.

Most participants said they expected the building to have a car park with sufficient spaces directly in front of, or very close to the entrance of the building:

'Parking and pick-up spaces right outside the door.'

Some participants also said a drop-off zone at the very front was useful for people who struggled to walk longer distances:

'Building needs to have a drop-off process near the main entrance to the building…'

Many participants gave examples of times where a lack of parking made their journey more difficult:

'…I was down in [location] and the car parking to the appeal centre was 550 yards away. […] Halfway there was a bench and I didn't know if I was calling for help to get there or an ambulance for the client I was helping…'

Most participants said that they could not, or did not want to rely on public transport as it was stressful, unreliable or took too long.

'Accessible parking [is] absolutely essential. Assuming people can rely on public transport is not an option.'

Participants told us that the area around the building should not be too hilly or uneven, that people should not have to walk up a hill to enter the building and that the entrance to the building should not involve stairs. Participants expected the route from the car park to the building to be on level ground and clearly signposted.

Some participants said that having benches on the route to the building would be useful:

'…if it is a long way to walk, having seated areas in between.'

Others suggested railings would help clients who had difficulty walking:

'I'll say that from when I injured my hip, rails become my new best friend. But if you have crutches or not, rails can be so much easier to hold onto…'

Co-locating with other organisations

Social Security Scotland will have a local presence across the country, with clients able to speak with the agency in person in their local area. To do this, the agency may have to co-locate with other organisations.

We asked survey respondents how they would feel if the agency co-located with a number of different organisations. The organisations presented to respondents represent potential ideas and may not be representative of where the agency co-locates in the future.

Respondents were most happy for the agency to co-locate with their local authority, with two thirds of respondents (66 per cent) saying they were 'very happy' or 'happy' for this to happen. Similar numbers of respondents felt the same about co-locating with their local Citizen's Advice Bureau or at a National Health Service location (63 per cent).

The most contentious place to co-locate was at Department for Work and Pensions buildings, such as a JobCentre Plus. Just less than half of respondents (47 per cent) were 'very happy' or 'happy' with this, and just under a third were 'unhappy' and 'very unhappy'.

Table 9: Respondents views on co-location (n=172-177)

Organisation	Very happy and Happy (%)	Neutral (%)	Unhappy and Very unhappy (%)
Your local authority	66	22	12
Your local Citizen's Advice Bureau	63	27	10
At a National Health Service location (such as a hospital or GP surgery)	63	26	11
At a Department for Work and Pensions building (such as a JobCentre Plus)	47	22	31

Focus group participants were also asked their views on co-locating with other organisations. Some participants did not have strong opinions around co-location, so long as the building was accessible.

'They have their own space […], if it's separate, what's the issue.'

However other participants did have strong views over the use of local authority, NHS and other government buildings.

Local authorities

Whilst two thirds of survey respondents said they would be very happy or happy with the agency co-locating with a local authority, focus group partiicpants had mixed views.

Some participants had negative experiences of interacting with their local authority or their employees:

'People have had bad experiences with housing officers – they are as bad or worse than DWP. They have the same attitude, if we put local delivery staff in local authority buildings, we will be taking a step backwards…'.

'Local authority staff are trained to do set things and they are targeted as not friendly […] Local authorities are budget led, they're not looking at what you need, they are looking at what they can budget for. People do not want to go into local authorities and speak to people as they aren't friendly or helpful.'

Other participants felt that local authority buildings were not as accessible as they should be, or were of poor quality:

'If using council buildings, be aware that they vary – some are inaccessible and have barriers between staff and customers…'

'Local authority buildings can be unclean and have "odours".'

Some participants suggested that sharing a building could be acceptable if the agency had its own entrance, reception area, as sharing reception areas was seen to be problematic by some:

'Sharing the main reception area is not good – local authority reception staff would need to be trained in agency values.'

NHS Buildings

Just under two thirds of survey respondents (63 per cent) said they would be very happy or happy with the agency co-locating with the NHS. Focus group participants raised few objections to the idea in principle, however some did feel it was an unrealistic goal as they felt NHS buildings would not have the space or resources to accommodate the agency:

'Here that would be no use – I know in [location] there's no space in the hospital anyway.'

Some participants also perceived NHS buildings to be hard to travel to due to limited parking:

'Don't use NHS buildings as parking is difficult due to insufficient spaces.'

Overall, few participants had strong objections to the use of NHS buildings, however those that were raised represented practical barriers to attending such sites for participants with mobility issues.

Other government buildings

Survey respondents were least happy with the agency co-locating within a DWP building, such as a JobCentre Plus. Many focus group participants told us they had negative associations with DWP buildings as a result of past interactions with the agency. They told us that if the agency co-located within DWP buildings, they would be reluctant to visit.

'…you'd never get anyone going in the building.'