The benefits department is currently engaged in delivering a programme of major reform, including bringing together offerings from across government, all of which is underpinned by online tools and services
The Department for Work and Pensions has been backed with £20m of funding this year to support the digital offering underpinning government’s new unified Jobs and Careers service.
The expanded service will bring together the current National Careers Service run by the Department for Education with the benefits and support provided via DWP Jobcentres – which operate from 646 locations around Great Britain, as well as offering online tools.
As the DWP prepares to implement this major revamp, a recent report from the Public Accounts Committee found that “the performance of jobcentres has declined in the past two years” and that “outcomes for claimants vary depending on where they live”.
The committee added that, while “the jobcentre system needs to improve, and we are supportive of ambitious change and innovative approaches… as it designs and implements the reformed service over the coming years, the department must not lose focus on supporting claimants who need help now”.
Among the various recommendations and requests made by MPs is a demand that the DWP provide detail on how it is spending the £55m it has been allocated this year to test parts of the new Jobs and Careers service.
In the latest monthly Treasury minutes release, rounding up formal government responses to PAC reports, the DWP reveals that the largest chunk of this development funding will support digitisation.
The document states that “£20m has been allocated to progress digital activity which will underpin the Jobs and Careers Service, including developing and testing prototypes for the new digital service”.
PublicTechnology recently revealed that the DWP spent a £170,000 chunk of this money has been spent on a short-term engagement with Deloitte to “deliver an initial proof-of-concept Jobs and Careers prototype to production, including the proof-of-concepts surrounding the development, deployment, and hosting of a mobile-friendly responsive web application” .
Related content
- EXCL: DWP to build ‘transformational in-house digital service’ to replace national Find a Job online tool
- EXCL: DWP to ‘reuse UC digital service’ code in £13.5m deal to support delivery of New Style benefits
- ‘DWP’s radically improved digital offer will put a Jobcentre in your pocket’
Alongside the £20m for digital development, some £15m has been put aside “to undertake a series of tests and trials” – including an ongoing ‘pathfinder’ pilot exercise being run in the city of Wakefield, which aims to provide local jobseekers with a more personalised service.
The next largest chunk of funding – £13m – “has been allocated to cover resources to enable delivery, [including] coaching and training for staff, branding development, activity to engage employers as well as staffing”, the DWP response reveals.
Finally, some £5m has been provided “to explore alternative delivery solutions”, while £2m of funding is included as a “contingency applied to all programme activity”.
But the response adds: “The department is taking an agile approach, and re-allocations could take place during the year within the programme governance.”
PAC also found that the DWP “does not publish data on work coach numbers or into-work rates” and asked that the department “set out how it will increase transparency around jobcentres, for example by regularly publishing jobcentre level data” online. This publication regime should begin by the end of 2025, MPs ask.
In response, the DWP said that it “is developing a labour market publication strategy to bring additional transparency to the data it holds [and] expects this will include publishing into-work rates and some labour market data at a Jobcentre Plus district level”.
However, “this publication is not expected to include data on work coach numbers [as], while the department does hold that data, it is not assured to official statistics quality standards”.
