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SMART CARDS TOP VOUCHERS FOR PUBLIC SECTOR PAYMENTS
Thursday 08 April 2004

More than 100 public sector officials met in London this week to learn the lessons from failed benefit policies, including distributing vouchers to asylum-seekers.

The two-day event explored options for the fair distribution of ring-fenced funds to claimants, and assessed the role of the voucher in comparison with the smart card.

The Conference was hosted by the highly rated think tank, the Social Market Foundation, and organised by Symposium Events. Keynote speakers included Shadow Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, David Willetts MP, and former Secretary of State for Transport, the Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP.

Tackling the presentation aspects of vouchers and smart cards was Nick Wood-Dow, Chairman of Client Services at Chelgate, who spoke after Byers and Bharti Patel of the Refugee Council, and supported the case for smart cards for the distribution of ring-fenced funds.

Nick emphasized the importance of thinking backwards, ie clarifying what you want to achieve before thinking through how best to achieve it - a regular Chelgate recommendation to clients. If a policy of issuing vouchers had been tried and found wanting with nursery school places and asylum-seeker payments, it was likely to fail again with other public sector user groups in future.

The advantages of the smart card were numerous, and avoided categorising users with the stigma of having to use vouchers. The smart card can be topped up regularly, used like any other over the counter plastic card, and can empower the user to control expenditure week by week. The current debate within Cabinet about the introduction of National ID cards showed that technology-led cards were still under consideration for tackling fraud and immigration issues - and were a key policy for the future.

Nick felt it was appropriate to follow Byers in this debate, as in December 1999, he had organised an event at the Financial Times where Byers, then Trade Secretary, performed the first digital signing by a British Cabinet Minister, for Chelgate client InterForum. This had led to the Electronic Communications Act, passed in May 2000.

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