Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 21
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)
DWP acknowledged that cultural change can be the hardest part of any transformation programme. It told us that this requires leadership to help people understand the change that is coming, why the change is a good 35 Qq 19-20 36 C&AG’s Report (customer service), paras 2.2, 2.3 37 Q 25 38 C&AG’s Report (customer service), paras 3.10, 3.11 39 C&AG’s Report (customer service), para 3.17 40 Q 30 12 thing and how they have a part to play in making the change. DWP said it took comfort from its wider experience of delivering service transformation, such as on UC where it had moved staff away from relatively low–grade paper-based processing into more interesting customer-facing work.41
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.