Having first made major moves to get the most out of automated systems almost a decade ago, the department’s transformation minister claims that it has reaped significant rewards from tech

The Department for Work and Pensions has used automation technologies to support the processing of close to 50 million benefit claims made by citizens, a minister has claimed.

Andrew Western – who is the first holder of the role of DWP minister for transformation, created last year by the incoming Labour administration – said that, in recent years “58 automations have been deployed across” the department. Some 38 of these are still in use, he claimed.

In response to a question from fellow Labour MP Terry Jermy – who asked for the department’s view “of the potential merits of increasing digitalisation and automation in the provision of welfare services” – Western said that new technology has already support the DWP in handling a significant volume of benefit applications. These automated processes have consequently freed up enormous amounts of staff time, the minister said.

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“The Department for Work and Pensions has already implemented many automation initiatives and remains dedicated to identifying future opportunities for further enhancements,” he said. “Automation processes have handled a total of 44.46 million claims and saved 3.4 million staff hours.”

The DWP remains committed to identifying other potential deployments of automation tech, according to Western.

He said: “We will continue to explore additional automation and digitisation prospects which will help reduce operating costs, enabling agents to dedicate more time to citizens, and expedite claims processing where possible.”

The DWP was an early mover in its use of automated systems, having established the Intelligent Automation Garage unit back in 2017. Since then, it has made notable use of automation tools in the administration of the likes of the State Pension and the Budgeting Loans service.

Following such developments – alongside the growing use of artificial intelligence – about 18 months ago the department updated its formal personal data policies to notify citizens of the possible use of “automated processing in some decision making” procedures.