Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 24
24
Accepted
DWP needs to build greater claimant trust to encourage reporting of changing circumstances.
Recommendation
We previously concluded that the Department needed to do more to encourage people to report changes of circumstances, which hinges on making it easy for people to get in touch and on customers trusting that they will be treated fairly.45 The Department told us that customer satisfaction was generally high, but acknowledged that it needed to go further in building trust.46 It also spoke about research it had done to understand how people feel about the Department, and said what was interesting was that people who regularly dealt with the Department had a more positive view of the Department than the wider population.47
Government Response Summary
The department will assess the impact of the ‘Tell DWP’ communications campaign on claimant reporting behavior, evaluate locally targeted elements of the campaign, and publish findings from these evaluation activities by December 2026.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
6.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: December 2026 6.2 The department has established a comprehensive evaluation approach to assess the impact of the ‘Tell DWP’ communications campaign on claimant reporting behaviour. The department recognises a fully causal impact evaluation is not feasible due to national rollout and lack of control group. However, it has put in place performance, behavioural, and attitudinal measures to ensure meaningful assessment of the campaign’s effectiveness. 6.3 Alongside the national evaluation, the department will evaluate locally targeted elements of the campaign to understand whether interventions further improve reporting behaviour. 6.4 The department will publish findings from these evaluation activities.