MPs have raised concerns that the leadership at the Department for Work and Pensions "seems complacent" about the impact of a shortage of work coaches on claimants.
In the first six months of 2024-25, the department had 2,100 (11%) fewer work coaches than it estimated it needed.
To help deal with the shortfall, the DWP has, through a national framework for local flexibility, allowed job centres to reduce the support they provide for claimants when the caseload of their work coaches gets too high. More than half (57%) of job centres have used the framework to manage their workload.
A new report by the Public Accounts Committee has urged the department to evaluate the impact on claimants of job centres implementing measures from the local flexibility framework, and share the results with the committee before making any of the measures a permanent change.
However, a few days before the release of the report, DWP permanent secretary Sir Peter Schofield updated MPs to let them know that some of the measures in the framework have now been made permanent.
The permanent changes are:
- The frequency of appointments for customers in the Intensive Work Search group with employed earnings will be reduced from weekly or fortnightly to every eight weeks
- After 13 weeks of a customer’s claim, all customers in the Intensive Work Search group (excluding those with earnings) will be seen fortnightly for 10 minutes, compared to 50% currently being seen weekly for 10-20 minutes
- The first claimant commitment meeting, where customers are talked through the requirements of their claims, will be shortened from 50 minutes to 30 minutes
Schofield said that, as a result of these changes, the department will no-longer operate a national framework for local flexibility.
In an evidence session for the report in May, Schofield told committee members they should not be concerned about the reductions in support because the department has "reduced the frequency of interventions on the things that we think make the least difference to outcomes, primarily the outcomes about getting people into work".
However, the PAC report notes that the into-work rate declined from 9.7% in 2021–22 to 8.2% in 2023–24, and it says third-sector organisations raised concerns to the committee about the quality and consistency of the support offered to claimants.
Responding to the changes highlighted in Schofield’s letter – which came in too late to be included in the report – PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: “This committee had serious questions about the department’s reductions to claimant support, and this letter confirming the permanence of those reductions only deepens my concerns, on behalf of claimants.
“They want to be able to access the world of work, and that is the main thrust of government policy. These changes would appear to fly in the face of that, and reinforce our original recommendation that we see an evaluation of the impact of reductions in support."
He added: “It is unclear what the cost savings of these changes may be, and the impact on the number of claimants getting into work. It is critical going forward that claimants themselves are consulted on these changes and how they will affect their future work chances.”
The committee also questioned the evidence base for the changes, pointing out that the evidence underpinning the first two measures is around five years old, and describing the third as being “based on anecdotal evidence”.
The randomised control trial that is the evidence base for the first two permanent changes found there was no statistically significant difference in earnings outcomes between those receiving fortnightly interventions and those seen every eight weeks, and found that weekly reviews are more effective before week 13 than after week 13, relative to fortnightly interventions.
For the third change, reducing the first meeting to 30 minutes, Schofield admitted there was “no formal evidence” on its impact, but said “feedback from frontline staff suggests that customers can be supported within the reduced time frame”. He added that where a customer needs longer than 30 minutes, a further appointment may be offered depending on individual circumstances.
In response to the permanent changes, the committee said it “expects to see an up-to-date evaluation of the impact of more recent reductions in support”.
Clifton-Brown said: “The support provided by work coaches in job centres is critical to help people find employment and progress in work. It would necessarily follow that reducing the levels or changing the nature of support provided, in particular limiting the length of initial interviews with claimants, which have to include all the verification as well as advice, would have an impact on how that service was delivered.
"DWP’s apparently complacent assurances to the contrary held no water with this committee. We are seeing a continuing decline in into-work rates, and government itself accepts that its plans to provide intensive support to help disabled people and those with health conditions into work will make the work-coach shortfall even more challenging to manage."
The committee also raised concern that the department "will continue to not have enough work coaches to meet the growing demand for support", with demand for work coach support anticipated to increase and claimants’ needs expected to become more complex.
It urged the DWP to develop a workforce plan within 12 months as part of its work to design and set up the new jobs and careers service, and said this should include details of the steps it will take to make sure it has enough work coaches to provide face-to-face support to people who need it.
The report also criticises the department for not publishing data on work coach numbers or into-work rates. It said this means it is not clear how well local jobcentres are supporting claimants to work.
The committee has asked the DWP to set out how it will increase transparency around job centres, such as by regularly publishing job centre-level data on its Stat-Xplore platform, including data on work coach numbers against need and into-work rates. It said this regular reporting should start before the end of 2025.
The MPs have also raised concern that the department has not evaluated the effectiveness of its approach to supporting claimants into work since 2015. They said DWP should, within six months, publish a strategy for evaluating the impact of its reforms to the employment support system and for refreshing its evidence base regularly.