Recommendations & Conclusions
5 items
2
Recommendation
60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025
Accepted
The Department does not have assurance that shortening the first meeting a Universal Credit claimant has with a work coach to 30 minutes will not adversely affect the support it provides. We reported previously that 57% of jobcentres had used the Department’s ‘local flexibility framework’ which set out measures that …
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The Department does not have assurance that shortening the first meeting a Universal Credit claimant has with a work coach to 30 minutes will not adversely affect the support it provides. We reported previously that 57% of jobcentres had used the Department’s ‘local flexibility framework’ which set out measures that jobcentres could implement when the caseload of their work coaches became too high. In June 2025, the Department wrote to tell us that it had made three of the measures 3 in the framework permanent, including shortening the first meeting that claimants have with a work coach from 50 to 30 minutes. In September 2025, the Department wrote to us again and acknowledged that it lacks quantitative evidence on the impact of this change. While the Department has some feedback from frontline staff that claimants can be adequately supported within the reduced timeframe, we note that it has gathered no feedback from claimants. The Department says there is flexibility in work coaches’ schedules to allow for initial meetings to be extended if needed, or for subsequent meetings to be arranged. However, this seems to be at the discretion of individual work coaches and we fear that the bar to qualify for an extended meeting may be set too high. Without clear guidelines, claimants with more complex needs may not get the support they need. recommendation The Department should set out how it will monitor the impact of shortening the first meeting claimants have with a work coach, including how it will assess the impact on different groups of claimants. As part of its monitoring, the Department should obtain feedback from claimants.
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and will undertake a qualitative research project to gather claimant insights on their experiences at the initial claimant commitment meeting, including feedback on its length and content.
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HM Treasury
4
Recommendation
60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025
Accepted
It is unacceptable how long some PIP claimants are having to wait for their claims to be processed, which can cause them to get into debt and push them into poverty. The Department does not have an adequate plan to improve this in the short term. The Department aims to …
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It is unacceptable how long some PIP claimants are having to wait for their claims to be processed, which can cause them to get into debt and push them into poverty. The Department does not have an adequate plan to improve this in the short term. The Department aims to process 75% of new PIP claims within 75 working days but, in 2024–25, only 51% of claims were processed within this timeframe. We have constituents who have waited a long time for their claims to be processed, in some cases over a year. As it has done previously, the Department pointed to its Health Transformation Programme as the long-term solution to improving the service it provides to PIP claimants. As part of this, the Department is testing in a few postcodes an online application process, which it says has typically reduced the time taken to process claims by 20 days and enabled it to achieve its target. In 2023, the Department told the previous Committee that it intended to process up to 20% of PIP claims using the new online service by 2026. We are concerned, however, that this timetable may not be achieved as the Department now says only that it believes it can reach the 20% target by 2029 when the programme is due to be completed. This is far too long for claimants to have to wait to get a better service. We note that the programme is likely to be used to apply a test and learn approach to the recommendations that come out of the Timms review of PIP, however, the Department should not allow this to result in further delays to improvements. recommendation Alongside its Treasury Minute response, the Department should write to the Committee to provide: • for 2024–25, more detailed data on the time taken to process new PIP claims, specifically a breakdown of the number and proportion of claims processed as follows: ○ within the target of 75 working days; ○ after the 75-day target but within six months; ○ after six months but within 12 months; and ○ after 12 months. The Department should also pro
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees and will write to the Committee by the end of March 2026 to provide the requested detailed data breakdown on PIP claims processing times for 2024-25. It also notes current average processing times are 16 weeks and outlines other service improvements and …
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HM Treasury
5
Recommendation
60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025
Accepted
While we are encouraged that the Department has ambitious plans to address the risks associated with its legacy IT systems, implementing these plans over the next three years will be highly challenging. Reducing reliance on legacy IT systems is a key part of the Department’s service modernisation programme and will …
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While we are encouraged that the Department has ambitious plans to address the risks associated with its legacy IT systems, implementing these plans over the next three years will be highly challenging. Reducing reliance on legacy IT systems is a key part of the Department’s service modernisation programme and will also help it to manage the significant cyber risks it faces. The Department plans to reduce the overall risk from its legacy IT systems by 58% over the next three years and to tackle the larger systems which are used by more staff and customers first. If implemented successfully, these plans could transform the Department’s customer service and productivity. For example, the Department told us it is piloting a customer account which would enable citizens to do things across multiple benefits, rather than just one by one. However, as we have noted before, major digital transformation programmes have often failed to deliver as intended, and government is struggling to modernise a legacy environment at the same time as harbouring a major ambition to exploit opportunities from new technologies such as AI. recommendation The Department should set out more information about: • its plans for reducing the risk from legacy IT systems over the next three years, including milestones for replacing key systems, and the changes its customers can expect as a result; and • the timetable for rolling out its pilot to enable citizens to do things across multiple benefits, rather than just one by one, and how long it will take to evaluate this pilot. 6 1 Jobcentres and skills Introduction
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees and details its accelerated three-year plan to address 36 critical legacy IT systems, including full transformation, refactoring, and code fixes, aiming for improved customer service. It is developing the first iteration of a multi-benefit customer account, will launch a message centre MVP …
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HM Treasury
9
Recommendation
60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025
Accepted
Work coaches in jobcentres play a critical role working directly with Universal Credit claimants to identify their needs and provide support. In our July 2025 report on Jobcentres, we highlighted that the Department had not had enough work coaches to meet the need for support. We noted that 57% of …
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Work coaches in jobcentres play a critical role working directly with Universal Credit claimants to identify their needs and provide support. In our July 2025 report on Jobcentres, we highlighted that the Department had not had enough work coaches to meet the need for support. We noted that 57% of jobcentres had used the Department’s ‘local flexibility framework’ which set out measures that jobcentres could implement to reduce the support they provide for claimants when the caseload of their work coaches became too high. We concluded that the Department seemed complacent about the impact that this reduction in work coach support might have on claimants. We recommended that the Department should evaluate the impact on claimants of jobcentres implementing measures from its local flexibility framework, and share the results with us, before making any of the measures permanent.16 13 Q 18 14 Q 23 15 Qq 17, 22-24, 74 16 Committee of Public Accounts, Jobcentres, Thirty-Sixth Report of Session 2024–25, HC 823, 2 July 2025, pp 3-4 and 11 9
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Government response AI summary
The government accepts the recommendation to evaluate the impact of reduced claimant support by Summer 2027. They will undertake a qualitative research project to gather claimant insights on the initial claimant commitment meeting.
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HM Treasury
26
Conclusion
60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025
Accepted
We asked the Department if it had been given extra resources to deal with some of its legacy IT and what its plans were. The Department confirmed it did get specific funding in the Spending Review for both its increase in cyber security and its ‘legacy tech debt’ programme. It …
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We asked the Department if it had been given extra resources to deal with some of its legacy IT and what its plans were. The Department confirmed it did get specific funding in the Spending Review for both its increase in cyber security and its ‘legacy tech debt’ programme. It explained that it had aggregated the risk scores for every single system it had categorised– scoring each system against a number of dimensions. Over the next three years, it was planning to upgrade its high-risk legacy systems with the aim of reducing its overall risk score from legacy IT by 58%. The Department said that it planned to tackle the larger systems used by more staff and customers first, with the 36 highest-risk systems being addressed this year. It told us that it was not that its legacy systems could not be protected from cyber attack, but it had to put layers of protection in place so that specific threats relevant to one bit of the overall system were lessened.39
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Government response AI summary
The government is already upgrading its high-risk legacy systems, aiming to reduce overall risk by 58% over the next three years and plans to tackle the largest systems first.
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HM Treasury