Background to the report

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) makes benefit and pension payments to more than 20 million people across Great Britain. In 2023-24, it spent £268.5 billion on these payments plus £7.3 billion on running costs.

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The quality of customer service that DWP provides matters because claimants, many of whom are vulnerable or have complex needs, rely on benefit income to avoid or mitigate financial hardship.

Responsibility for customer service work is spread across DWP. The department also outsources part of its telephony services to private providers who handle more straightforward customer queries. The DWP staff involved in customer service carry out a range of activities that include processing claims and dealing with calls from customers.

Scope of the report

This report examines whether DWP has an effective approach to customer service. The evaluative criteria used to assess value for money included whether DWP:

  • has a clear framework for monitoring customer service, such as clear objectives, measures and performance reporting
  • has provided good customer service over recent years in relation to four key areas – satisfaction, payment accuracy, payment timeliness and telephony
  • has clear plans to improve customer service

Conclusion

DWP has a responsibility to provide good customer service, not least because its customers cannot switch to an alternative welfare provider if they are unhappy with the service they receive. Its customers include some of the most vulnerable in society, who rely on DWP for the accurate and timely payment of the benefits to which they are entitled.

Faced with growing demand and a challenging operational context, DWP’s customer service has fallen short of the expected standards over recent years, particularly for certain benefits, such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It is generally not meeting its performance benchmarks or standards for customer satisfaction, payment timeliness and answering calls to its in-house telephone lines.

There are some areas of strong performance with, for example, the proportion of State Pension customers satisfied with the service they receive consistently above DWP’s benchmark of 85%, and Universal Credit performing well on payment timeliness and telephony.

But there are also areas of poor performance, in particular payment timeliness for PIP with only 52% of claims processed in line with the 75-day standard in 2023-24 – although this represents a considerable improvement compared with previous years.

DWP recognises that it needs to transform its services to be a customer-focused organisation. Its modernisation plans are based on a good understanding of the issues that need to be addressed and are necessarily ambitious. However, the scale and complexity of the plans mean delivery is risky, and DWP is unlikely to achieve in the short term the improvements that are needed.

DWP must now set out how it will assess whether its actions to improve customer service are working and how it will track progress towards its goals. This will provide assurance on value for money and help DWP keep its plans on track so that it can consistently provide a good service to those people who rely on it.

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