How will the DWP ensure it pays benefit claimants on time?
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) holds an evidence session with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) at 10am on Thursday 5 December. The session follows the National Audit Office’s (NAO) 2024 reports on the DWP’s customer service work and its 2023-24 Accounts.
Meeting details
The DWP’s 20 million customers include some of the most vulnerable people in the society, who rely on the DWP for accurate and timely receipt of benefits. The NAO recently found that the DWP’s customer service has fallen short in recent years, with performance in processing new claims on time falling from 77% in 2019-20 to 72% in 2023-24. After including blocked and deflected calls to the DWP by customers, a third of all calls went unanswered last year.
The NAO report found that performance varied significantly between benefits. According to the DWP, the long-term effects of the pandemic, together with increased demand for benefits, affected its ability to process benefits in a timely manner since 2019. While over 83% of Universal Credit claims were processed on time over the past five years, the same could only be said of just 7% of new Personal Independent Payment (PIP) claims in 2021-22.
The session will also scrutinise the DWP’s 2023-24 accounts, which continued to see material levels of fraud and error in benefit expenditure. The NAO found that claimants in 2023-24 received approx. 1.6% (£4.2bn) less than they were eligible for. Overpayments were sitting at levels of 6.7% (£9.5bn) in 2023-24, still higher than pre-pandemic levels. DWP had previously expected fraud and error rates to return to pre-pandemic rates by 2027-28, but has now said it cannot commit to substantial reductions based on current plans.
The Committee will likely challenge senior DWP officials on topics including:
- How to improve customer service performance and timeliness of processing claims;
- Support for vulnerable customers; and
- Progress in, and plans for, tackling fraud and error.