Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 10
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 ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In June 2025, just before we published our report, the Department wrote to tell us that it had made three of the measures in the framework permanent. Two of these measures involved reducing the frequency of appointments for customers in the Intensive Work Search group. The third measure was shortening the first meeting claimants have with a work coach—the ‘claimant commitment meeting’ when customers are talked through the requirements of their claims—from 50 to 30 minutes.17
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".