Recommendation 4

The Department launched the scheme without the caseworkers it required to deliver the complex scheme it designed and has never had the operational capacity it needs, leaving people waiting for decisions. When it launched the scheme, the Department had only six caseworkers to deal with processing claims, compared to the 125 it considered it would need. It has never caught up and appears to still be significantly understaffed. While it has also been taking caseworkers far longer than expected to deal with each individual claim, there have been errors and inconsistencies in the way claims have been processed, with quality assurance checks often finding that cases need revisiting and work repeated. The Department says it now has plans to review its training for caseworkers with a view to improving the process. It is also looking at how it can restructure the way it organises its caseworkers across all areas of the Department to bring together expertise. Recommendation: The Department should write to the Committee within one month setting out its plan to improve its caseworking operations, including: • whether it has successfully increased the number of caseworkers for the scheme as planned and whether it will need to recruit any more caseworkers; • what further support it will provide to individual caseworkers, including training mentoring and guidance; and • the plans in place to improve consistency and productivity in caseworking. Windrush Compensation Scheme 7 1 Performance of the scheme