Recommendation 24

The Department acknowledged that it had prioritised throughput— processing cases quickly—at the expense of consistent decision-making. With hindsight, that had been the wrong thing to do. It had been done for the right reasons—because the Department wanted to get the backlog 36 C&AG’s Report, paras 2, 1.5 and Figure 1 37 Q 8 38 See Annex: Summary of confidential written evidence 39 Q 25 40 C&AG’s Report, para 2.7 14 down—but it had produced the wrong outcomes.41 The Department said that the five principles of Access to Work, which it has set out to guide its decisions about the award of funding, had not been properly applied in a consistent way, particularly around things such as employers’ reasonable adjustments and job aides.42