Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 18
6th Report - DWP Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24
Published 31 Jan 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee DWP Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Since 2019 DWP has contracted Ipsos to undertake a regular customer experience survey.36 We asked DWP whether it could track customer satisfaction for customers with disabilities or additional needs. DWP said it had done some analysis of its customer experience survey but acknowledged that it could be making better use of its survey data to understand differences in customer experiences by key characteristics. It said that it was revising the survey contract with a view to including more wider analysis.37 Service modernisation
From: Public Accounts Committee, 6th Report - DWP Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24 (HC 354), 31 January 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 6 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations in this response, but disagrees with the recommendation that it set out when it expects to meet its PIP processing target.
- On PIP claim times, the government disagrees with the recommendation, stating the department "has to balance speed against the risk of inaccuracy". It says the Health Transformation Programme will modernise PIP "in the longer-term".
- On ESA calls, the government agrees and says it is recruiting 160 colleagues by March 2025. It states that customer wait times for ESA enquiries "will be improved by September 2025".
- On counter fraud, the government agrees and says that from April 2025 the department "will begin progressive deployment of an additional 3,000 staff", expecting the full number to be in role by 2027-28.
- On machine learning, the government agrees and gives a target implementation date of summer 2025. It says the department "will support an in-confidence session" on the 2024 fairness analysis assessment.