Recommendation 9

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s Fiscal Sustainability Report (July 2020) outlines that ‘unemployment is likely to be materially higher for several years’ and forecasts that unemployment will significantly increase from its current level (it assumes 15 per cent of people on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will ‘move into unemployment’ in its central scenario).15 In response to questioning on how the Department is preparing for another possible increase in benefit claimants over the next few months, it told us “we are developing very robust business continuity programmes that build on what we have learnt”.16 The Department has been promised an additional £895 million of funding as part of the ‘plan for jobs’ (announced on 8 July) ‘to enhance work search support by doubling the number of work coaches in Jobcentre Plus before the end of the financial year across Great Britain’.17 The Department told us that it aims to increase the number of work coaches from 13,500 to 27,000 by the end of March 2021; it explained that it is currently in its second wave of recruiting and is hiring 8,000 staff (4,500 work coaches and 3,500 to work in service centres and back-office processes to help manage claims).18 9 Q 5 10 Q 1 11 Q 5 12 DWP ARAC 2019–20, page 193 13 C&AG’s Report, Departmental Overview 2019–20: Department for Work & Pensions, 13 October 2020, page 18. 14 C&AG’s Report, Universal Credit: getting to first payment, Session 2019–21, HC 376, 10 July 2020, page 33, para 2.8 15 Office for Budget Responsibility, Fiscal Sustainability Report, July 2020, pages 38–39, 137 16 Q 5 17 HM Treasury, Plan for Jobs, CP 261, 8 July 2020, page 9, para 2.17. 18 Q 5 Department for Work and Pensions Accounts 2019–20 11 2 Fraud and error Pre-COVID-19: fraud and error at record levels