Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 14
14
The Department currently has just over 200 people conducting the LEAP exercise.
Conclusion
The Department currently has just over 200 people conducting the LEAP exercise. The State Pension correction exercise requires specialist staff and training and is expected to cost the Department £23.4 million, with over 500 staff employed, by the time the exercise completes. The Department redeployed its more experienced caseworkers from its Retirement Services division to the LEAP exercise and backfilled their posts from elsewhere in the Department or through new joiners. This placed additional strain on its normal State Pension operations, which already have backlogs as a result of COVID-19 and the prioritisation of new Universal Credit claims during the early part of the pandemic.28 The Department acknowledged that it moved staff ‘possibly too quickly’ and committed to clear the backlog of new State Pension claims by the end of October 2021. It told us that it has seen an increased number of applications for new State Pension in recent months, likely because those who wanted to defer their pension were now claiming it sooner and because of age equalisation effects.29 However, over 3,000 cases remained outstanding as at 4 November 2021 where the Department asked for more information to be provided by claimants.30 Accuracy of the LEAP exercise
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
4.2 The department continually reviews and manages demand across the business, balancing the need to deliver existing services with any in-year pressures or new work. This is the case across all the department’s service delivery areas. For example, the department took a decision in Autumn 2021 to temporarily delay the move of staff from State Pension claims work to the State Pension Underpayment Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) exercise, in order to tackle outstanding new claims. This ensured all outstanding State Pensions claims were cleared by the end of October. To maintain delivery of the LEAP exercise, the department has allocated additional resource, both from internal moves, and external recruitment to have over 1400 frontline delivery colleagues working on the exercise. The department has deployed over 500 colleagues to the LEAP exercise, with additional internal moves, and external recruitment of 560 Full Time Equivalents currently in progress. 4.3 Succession planning is at the heart of the department’s planning – colleagues working on the exercise will have the full end-to-end knowledge and skills needed for State Pensions service delivery. As part of this skills retention strategy, staff who had joined for the exercise on fixed term appointments were made permanent in December 2021.