27 January 2006
Whitehall's biggest department was this week described as 'in crisis', following claims that its huge efficiency drive has left two-thirds of benefit payments delayed, services rife with IT problems and officials planning to outsource core functions overseas.
The Department for Work and Pensions, which employs 120,000 civil servants and is critical to the government's £40bn efficiency agenda and flagship welfare reforms, was also accused of putting the delivery of quality public services at risk by planning to close up to 124 more Jobcentre Plus sites than originally intended.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, made the accusations during a parliamentary hearing into the DWP's efficiency drive, which could lead to the department making £1bn of savings annually by 2008.
The meeting of the work and pensions select committee on January 25 preceded a 48-hour strike by PCS DWP members over the impact of the department's plan to cut 30,000 jobs by 2008. The DWP recently claimed it had already made 15,000 of the job cuts.
Serwotka claimed that job losses at Jobcentre Plus offices meant that two-thirds of new applications for Jobseeker's Allowance were not processed effectively.
He also warned that continued problems with the DWP's IT customer management system meant that contact centres in Middlesbrough and Merseyside had recently reverted to clerical processing for new applications. 'That was what we were doing 20 years ago,' Serwotka warned.
The PCS claimed that DWP staff were working the overtime equivalent of 9,000 full-time jobs to complete work and cover the effects of the job cuts.
Lesley Strathie, chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, disputed Serwotka's claim that two-thirds of Jobseeker's Allowance applications were not processed effectively.
However, she admitted that up to 30% of the applications, and over 40% of income support applications, do not get processed through the department's 'data push' gateway, which sends applications from call centres to administration officers.
Strathie told Public Finance: 'Our contact centres may have put in place reserve and unused contingency plans to use clerical processing for JSA, but our latest figures for “data push” show that 70% of JSA applications to our contact centres are dealt with effectively.'
Committee chair Terry Rooney, however, said he found it 'terrifying' that so many benefit applications were not processed in the way intended by the department.
Serwotka said he had been informed that the DWP planned to close 124 more Jobcentre sites than the 577 already earmarked for closure.
DWP minister Margaret Hodge later told MPs that she did 'not recognise' Serwotka's figure for new closures, but added that 'as part of our reorganisation, we are constantly reviewing the number of Jobcentre Plus [sites] that we require.'
The PCS this week also released a leaked memo from the DWP's departmental security team, which indicates that contingency plans are being drawn up in the event that the DWP's outsourcing partners want to 'offshore' work and jobs to call centres overseas.
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