Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 9
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)
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
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".