Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 5
60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025
Published 9 Jan 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
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
From: Public Accounts Committee, 60th Report - DWP follow-up: Autumn 2025 (HC 1447), 9 January 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 April 2026 (deadline 9 March 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with four of the Committee's five areas of recommendation and disagrees with the recommendation to publish regular jobcentre-level performance data.
- On integrating skills into the Jobs and Careers Service, the government agrees, naming "a key milestone" as bringing the National Careers Service together with Jobcentre Plus from 1 October 2026, with an update due in Spring 2026.
- On the shorter first work coach meeting, the government agrees and says it "will be undertaking a qualitative research project" to gather claimant insight, including feedback on the length and content of the meeting.
- The government disagrees with publishing jobcentre-level data, saying its view "remains that the right level to monitor performance is at a district and local authority level", and points to its quarterly Labour Market Insights publication.
- On PIP claim times, the government agrees and says it "will however write to the Committee to provide the information available as requested, by the end of March 2026".