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Exchanges of information between the Department for Work and
Pensions (the Department) and the public lie at the heart of the UK
social security system, and they account for a large part of the
administrative operations and consequent running costs involved.
The increase in the number of applications for benefits, which has
been particularly rapid for working age people in recent months,
makes the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes
increasingly important. The Department and its agencies, Jobcentre
Plus (for working age people) and the Pension, Disability and
Carers Service (for retired people and disabled children, adults
and carers) are together responsible for managing applications for
12 major State benefits. There are a further 17 linked benefits
that do not have a distinct application process of their own.
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The Committee of Public Accounts last reported on government
forms in 2004, and recommended changes that Departments should make
to reduce the burden their forms impose on citizens: keeping forms
as short as possible and redesigning them where problems become
evident; providing concise guidance notes; ensuring that the
requirements of customers with specific needs are met; and making a
commitment to the Government’s then 2005 deadline for the online
provision of all forms [footnote
1].
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The Committee of Public Accounts reported on the Department’s
use of leaflets in 2007, and highlighted the large number of
separate leaflets the Department maintained, many of which could
not be supplied by the Department’s offices. Some of the leaflets
had a Plain English Campaign ‘Crystal Mark’, but all required a
reading age higher than the national average. The Department has
made substantial progress since then in reviewing its leaflets, has
cut the number of pre-printed leaflets from 208 at a cost of £10.3
million in April 2005 to 53 at a cost of £1.7 million in December
2008, and has put in place a new contract for printing and
distribution [footnote 2]. The
Department has implemented a Content Management System to store
information used in all its leaflets, and is strengthening internal
governance and ownership of content published through all channels,
to reduce the risk of incorrect information being given to
customers.
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The Department distributes leaflets through its offices, 120
local government offices and through non-government outlets such as
citizens’ advice bureaux. The Department has also moved to a much
more phone-based marketing of leaflets in which customers are
encouraged to ring a contact centre and talk to staff, who can then
arrange for them to be sent leaflets in the mail that are
up-to-date and are often printed on demand from electronic
templates.
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This report looks at the information exchanges between citizens
and the Department that underpin applications for social security
benefits and assesses:
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how easy it is for the Department’s customers to find out how
and where to claim benefits and what information they will be
required to submit;
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how straightforward it is for citizens to submit information to
the Department by their preferred channel (face-to-face, telephone,
paper forms or online);
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what quality of information provision the Department makes both
during and after application; and
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whether the Department makes maximum use of the information
provided by benefit applications to make subsequent contacts easier
for customers.
We do not consider in this study the efficiency or accuracy of
the Department’s decision-making, the detailed operation of call
centres and Jobcentre Plus offices, the adequacy of its computer
systems or other aspects not related to information exchange.
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We looked in detail at Jobseeker’s Allowance, the key benefit
for working age people, and two benefits for people over 60:
Pension Credit, which guarantees a minimum income for people over
60; and Attendance Allowance, which is a non means tested benefit
for older people with care needs due to physical or mental
disabilities. In total, the three benefits examined in this report
entail processing nearly 3.7 million new applications each year,
are paid to 5.5 million ongoing customers, and account for £13.7
billion in annual payments. Applicants for Jobseeker’s Allowance
will all have a face-to-face interview where their information is
verified and they are offered advice on looking for work. While the
majority of applications for Pension Credit and Attendance
Allowance are dealt with by telephone or post, in 2008 167,048
applications for Pension Credit and 108,002 applications for
Attendance Allowance were completed face-to-face in customers’
homes with the help of the Local Service.
Key findings
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Since the National Audit Office last reported on the
Department’s use of forms and leaflets, much progress has been made
in rationalising the Department’s leaflets, and in response to our
previous recommendations it has taken action to make its forms
easier to use. The Department has significantly changed the way in
which it provides information in recent years, with a reducing
emphasis on issuing leaflets and a significant growth in telephone
enquiries and in online information provision about benefits on the
internet. These are changes which help the Department to provide a
more responsive service to customers. The Department is now
undertaking a major change programme, part of which, the
Self-Service project, aims to increase the amount customers who
have access to the internet can do for themselves online if
appropriate for them. The Department has a related Service Delivery
strategy, which points the way to shifting more transactions
online, and improving other customer contacts. These changes are
all in line with the conclusions of the 2006 review of service
transformation carried out by Sir David Varney, [footnote 3] as well as recommendations
previously made by both the National Audit Office and the Committee
of Public Accounts. Many customers use the Department’s websites
and Directgov to look for information, but the number of electronic
contacts, such as enquiries by email, is low. The Department’s
contacts research notes that: ‘despite a 111 per cent increase in
the use of online channels from 2005-2008, the overall level of
e-contacts remains tiny’ [footnote
4].
The design of forms
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In general, since 2002 the Department has shortened its
forms, made them easier to read and made the sequence of questions
more logical for the customer. Many of the benefits the
Department manages are complex, however, and our census of the
Department’s main forms found that some of them still have lengthy
and complicated claim forms. There are also different versions of
some of the forms still in circulation, and citizens using paper
forms still have to grapple with very large, complex and
comprehensive guidance notes. The Department is now working with
the Plain Language Commission, and will ensure that all new
revisions of its forms reach the standards for accreditation used
by its new supplier. The current claim packs for Attendance
Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance carry the Plain English
Campaign’s ‘Crystal Mark’ award for clarity of language. Charities
working with benefit applicants told us that simplified getting
started guides showing step by step ‘how to complete this form’
information were not yet available for most forms and would go a
long way to helping people understand the information they needed
to provide. As a result of customer and representative feedback,
consistent with the recommendation made by the Committee for Public
Accounts in their 2004 report that guidance notes should be
designed to help people complete forms quickly and with minimum
effort, the Department has introduced a tear off page to the forms
for Attendance Allowance and adult Disability Living Allowance.
This page tells the customer where to get help; what information
they need before they start to fill in the form; how to fill in the
form; and what happens next. The Department has also changed its
approach to communicating with the public, heavily promoting the
use of phone calls for both enquiries about and applications for
State benefits so as to reduce dependence on paper forms and
leaflets.
Keeping a joined-up view of the whole customer experience
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The central Communications Directorate is not involved
to the same extent in all communications with people applying for
benefits. This lack of consistency means that the
Communications Directorate is missing opportunities for greater
insight into the customer experience and the agencies are not
benefiting from the Directorate’s expertise and advice to the
extent that they could. The Department’s central Communications
Directorate contributes specialist communications and marketing
skills, and manages centrally the key risk of inaccurate
information being given to customers. It works with the agencies in
developing leaflets, design of forms, web content and marketing
campaigns. However, it has much less advisory input to customer
letters, changes to contact centre scripts, and training staff to
respond to queries face-to-face or with phone enquiries.
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The Department has made progress in developing
procedures to link benefits and reduce the administration burden on
the customer. Customers can apply for State Pension,
Pension Credit, Council Tax Benefit and Housing Benefit all in one
phone call. Payments for these benefits are also rolled up into a
consolidated single payment, which is convenient for the customer
and reduces transaction costs for the Department. To improve the
quality of information it provides, with effect from April 2009 the
Department is rolling out a new customer statement (the Pension
Credit Award Notice and Statement of Details), which it designed
with input from pensioner customers and third party organisations,
and which will show a financial breakdown across a customer’s
benefits. Jobcentre Plus fosters the automatic ‘passporting’ of
working age customers applying for Jobseeker’s Allowance on to
other benefits (such as Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit).
If, however, their Jobseeker’s Allowance is subsequently withdrawn,
because the customer has failed to attend interviews or job search
reviews and has not informed the Agency of their circumstances, it
is likely that the local authority will suspend Housing Benefit and
Council Tax Benefit payments pending investigation. Low income
customers may, nonetheless, still be eligible for these other
benefits. Jobcentre Plus writes to customers when their Jobseekers’
Allowance is stopped advising them to get in touch with their local
authority as soon as possible, but it does not warn them that they
are at risk of losing their other benefits if they do not do
so.
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Job Point kiosks in Jobcentre Plus offices give
customers access to the job vacancies listed on the Jobcentre Plus
website, although they do not allow the same facilities for online
job searches or making online job applications as internet
access. Jobcentre Plus local office staff have the
opportunity to induct customers into their job-seeking
responsibilities and monitor and assist customers’ job-seeking
activities. Most job advertising, most job searches and many full
job applications nationwide now take place online. Applications for
jobs for some major employers such as the National Health Service
must now be made online. The current generation of Job Point kiosks
allow customers to access Jobcentre Plus’ large database of
vacancies, which gives access to the same vacancies as are
available through the Jobcentre Plus website and Directgov, but do
not allow them to access jobs on the internet or make online
applications this way. Facilities for less restricted access to the
internet are made available by other providers, in places such as
public libraries, UK Online centres and community centres. The
Department is considering options to replace the kiosks.
Using the internet to find out about benefits
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Across all benefits, broadly five sixths of users of
official websites were likely to find correct answers to typical
queries about their potential eligibility for benefit. The
Department has recently taken over responsibility for running
www.direct.gov.uk, one of two main supersites (the other being NHS
Choices) that the government intends should progressively take over
all citizen-facing information provision online [footnote 5]. The Department has now
consolidated content from the older websites for Jobcentre Plus,
the Pension, Disability and Carers Service and the Department
headquarters onto the Directgov website, although there is still
work to do to make material from the different websites consistent
with Directgov’s standards. While the Jobcentre Plus website will
remain open until 2010, the Department is in the process of
adopting the Directgov pages and directing customers to use these
in the first instance. In the transition period there is a mix of
different pages, and our experiments show that finding information
in some important areas can be difficult.
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Users participating in our experiments found that, when
using the Directgov’s search engine to answer questions such as
what unemployment benefit they were entitled to, their searches
generated some 500 results, and the most useful pages were not the
first listed. Users commented that this presentation was
confusing and frustrating. Directgov recognises the need to improve
the search engine and monitors the most frequently used search
terms. Since we carried out our fieldwork, Directgov has made
changes to the search engine as part of its ongoing review of
commonly used search terms.
Providing information in support of a benefit application
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At present applications for Jobseeker’s Allowance can be
set in motion online, and all online applicants will then be called
back two or three days later to provide more information before
they have a face-to-face interview at a Jobcentre Plus
office. The Department has recently accelerated plans to
allow customers to complete a full online application without a
separate telephone call. The law requires all applicants for
working age benefits to be seen in person at Jobcentre Plus local
offices, which by establishing the claimant’s identity face-to-face
helps overcome a common obstacle to implementing secure online
applications. The Department now plans to implement full online
applications as an alternative to the paper form or telephone
interview, initially for contributory Jobseeker’s Allowance, from
summer 2009 rather than February 2010 as originally planned. For
those who apply by telephone, Jobcentre Plus estimates that the
average length of a call is 29 minutes. Calls are free from
landlines, and the Department offers to call back customers using
mobile telephones. If they do not ask to be called back a customer
using a pay-as-you-go mobile phone could pay up to £11.60 for a
typical application.
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At present it is possible to claim Attendance Allowance
online, but not Pension Credit. At the moment, the primary
route for Pension Credit applications is by telephone to contact
centres. Call centre staff can complete most of the steps in the
application process in a single phone call averaging 19 minutes,
and are also able to help customers apply for State Pension,
Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit at the same time. The
Department offers a freephone telephone number to claim Pension
Credit. Most customers will not have to pay for these calls, but
6.8 per cent of the total calls are made from mobile telephones
and, for these people, calls could cost up to 40 pence per minute,
equivalent to £7.60 for an average call. The Department therefore
offers a free call back service so that vulnerable customers who
might not otherwise be able to afford the cost of contacting the
Department are supported.
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Around a fifth of applications for Pension Credit can be
approved immediately without the need to submit further
details. Four fifths of customers need to provide
additional documentation to verify that they qualify for the
benefit. We found that system-generated letters requesting
additional information can be overly long and poorly laid out. For
example, a simple letter asking for three additional pieces of
information is 16 sides long and the signature box, confusingly,
appears on page six of the letter. This means that, for some
customers, the way in which the Department asks for information
results in confusion and delay. The Department has made amendments
to the system generated letters as part as an ongoing review, to
address additional problems it had already identified with
placement of the ‘what to do next’ section, clarity of requests for
additional information, and customer misunderstanding of
instructions for how to return the form. It started to issue
revised letters with effect from 26 January 2009 after we had
completed our fieldwork. The issues we identified relating to the
length of the letters and the placing of the signature box have
still to be addressed.
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Decision-makers process claims for Attendance Allowance
using paper forms and enter few details on the computer system,
which means officials have access only to minimal case details in
the event of telephone queries. Very few details of
applications are computerised. A small number of application forms
are submitted electronically, but all of them are printed out and
limited details keyed into the Department’s computer systems as if
they were paper applications. Staff handling telephone queries have
access to the computer system, but without sight of the original
paper forms will be aware only of limited details of the case.
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Elderly people can be reluctant to send valuable
documents to the Department through the post, but awareness of the
alternative local verification service is low. There is a
network of 400 local charity and public sector offices willing to
check documents free of charge, but it is not the Pension,
Disability and Carers Service’s policy to refer customers to these
offices when they telephone to make a claim so as to avoid
overburdening what is an essentially voluntary service. For Pension
Credit and Attendance Allowance, visitors from the Local Service
provide a valuable service both for vulnerable people needing help
with their applications and for customers whose relatively complex
financial affairs or self-employment require a home visit.
Information collected by visitors on paper forms subsequently has
to be captured again by keying into the Department’s computer
systems. As a way of streamlining the process the Department is
piloting plans for details to be phoned in during the visit.
Informing vulnerable people of the benefits which could help
them
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Attendance Allowance is not universally understood,
which may mean it is not reaching some of the people who need
it. Take-up of Attendance Allowance is lower than for
other benefits, last estimated in 2003 by the Commission for Social
Care Inspection at around 40-60 per cent of those eligible. The
Department does not have an accurate measure of take-up so has not
set a target for what the take-up rate should be, or used specific
communications campaigns to actively drive take-up. The Department
recently commissioned independent research into issues affecting
take-up of Disability Living Allowance, and has now established the
feasibility of extending this work to cover Attendance Allowance.
Other steps it has taken to ensure the most vulnerable audiences
are aware of the benefit include revisions to the main leaflet in
consultation with representative groups. Local Service
representatives who visit customers in the target audience check
eligibility for all the benefits a customer may be entitled to,
including Attendance Allowance. The number of claims for Attendance
Allowance taken by the Local Service increased from 72,000 in
2005-06 to 108,000 in 2007-08. However, charities and
non-governmental organisations representing older people believe
that the benefit is not well understood by citizens, partly because
of its misleading name. Our focus groups found that the name is
widely misunderstood by older people as requiring them to attend an
old people’s centre. In our experiments, we found that 42 per cent
of people were unable to find out from official websites what the
eligibility criteria for Attendance Allowance are, and it took
those users who found them a long time to do so.
Conclusion on value for money
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The Department has improved the efficiency of its communications
with customers by reducing reliance on paper communications such as
leaflets, increasing telephone contacts and online information
provision and, for those who need more help, by providing
face-to-face support through the Local Service visits to customers.
These changes in approach have enabled the Department to reduce or
eliminate unnecessary communications. Further efficiency gains will
be possible from increasing online provision, particularly the
facility to make online applications. The investment in new systems
needed to support such provision fully is expected to take a number
of years.
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Since the Committee of Public Accounts last reported on
government forms, the Department has made progress in making its
forms shorter and easier to read, and promoting telephone enquiry
services has reduced the reliance on paper forms for many
customers. Linking some benefits so they can all be claimed in one
telephone call has also, for some customers, enhanced the
effectiveness of the Department’s communications. For those who
rely on paper forms, however, some forms are still lengthy, and
accompanied by long and over complex guidance notes. The
effectiveness of communications is also hampered by
system-generated letters which are long, complex and difficult for
customers to understand. It can be challenging for customers to
find answers to some of their queries using the Directgov website,
because there is a mix of different pages as content is transferred
from other websites, and because the internal search engine needs
further ongoing improvement.
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The Department has already realised substantial cost savings by
reducing the number of pre-printed leaflets by almost three
quarters, and by putting in place a new contract for printing and
distribution. For other communications activities the Department
cannot currently identify the full cost of managing communications
for specific benefits or communication channels. Cost efficiencies
from online provision have also still to be fully realised. For
example, though forms can be downloaded from the internet, it is
not yet possible to apply for most benefits online. Lengthy
engagement of staff and customer time is required in handling the
claim by telephone or face-to-face.
Recommendations
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Our recommendations are focused on the case study benefits we
looked at in detail for this study – Jobseeker’s Allowance, Pension
Credit and Attendance Allowance – but the Department should
consider whether the principles highlighted here have wider
application to other benefits.
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Much progress has been made in rationalising the
Department’s leaflets, but many forms are still long and complex,
and the majority lack simple getting started guides. As
the application process for each benefit is increasingly made
available online, and as the Department expands take-up of the
online route, it should review the need for the paper form and
supplementary printed guidance. It also needs to ask for the
required information as simply as possible, and in the same way as
the online process. Consistency is needed both in terms of the
supporting guidance and information, and in the structure and
sequencing of questions, so as to direct applicants only to the
questions they need to answer. For many benefits, paper forms are
likely to remain the main means of communication for many years,
and the Department should review these forms by considering what
questions are irrelevant for the majority of claimants, and
separate these questions into supplementary sub-forms issued only
where individual’s circumstances require it. This model has already
been adopted for Pension Credit paper forms, and is used by HM
Revenue and Customs for Income Tax returns. Customers still need
simple ‘how to get started’ guides to completing many forms, and
better highlighted internet or phone-based help processes on points
where they are unsure what to do.
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The Department does not currently use the Communications
Directorate to advise on all stages of information exchange for all
benefits. As a result, it is missing opportunities to
achieve a complete view of the customer experience and is not
making the best use of its corporate knowledge to mitigate the risk
of inadequate or inaccurate advice being given to customers. While
retaining operational responsibility within the Pension, Disability
and Carers Service and Jobcentre Plus, the Department should
strengthen the Communications Directorate’s formal advisory role.
The Directorate should oversee the consistent application of
standards; and the consistency, accuracy and usability of forms,
guidance notes, pro-forma letters, and contact centre scripts. By
thus engaging the specialist skills, expertise and knowledge of the
central Communications Directorate, as well as the Pension,
Disability and Carers Service and Jobcentre Plus, the Department
should be able to join up information exchange from start to finish
of a customer’s contact with the Department.
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The Department has not yet realised the substantial
processing efficiencies and customer service improvements that
could be realised by exchanging information with customers
online. For Jobseeker’s Allowance, once the system is
operational and has been tested to ensure it is sufficiently robust
to handle potential demand, the Department should market vigorously
the facility to submit full online applications currently planned
for summer 2009, seeking at least to meet its own assessment that a
rate of around 40 per cent online applications should be achievable
by 2011. In evaluating progress in increasing take-up of online
services, the Department should consider whether a shorter
time-horizon is achievable for the full Self-Service project for
information exchange, currently due for completion in 2014, and set
targets in the interim for incremental take-up of online services
for other benefits.
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The Directgov website is becoming the primary online
source of information about benefits, but our testing found it
difficult to use in some areas. As the volume of materials
on Directgov grows rapidly the internal search engine needs further
improvement, which has already started in response to the
recommendations previously made by the Committee of Public
Accounts. As use of the Directgov site increases, the Department
will need to keep under review the way information about benefits
is presented so that it meets both its own needs and those of its
customers.
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System-generated
letters sent to older customers requesting additional information
in support of Pension Credit applications are long and
confusing. The Department has introduced some amendments
to these pro forma letters in January 2009 under an initiative
called ‘Transforming Letters’. It should remain a priority to
review what further changes are necessary in the light of our
review, for example by signposting the signature box more clearly
and reducing the overall length of the letter. The Department
should examine system generated letters for other benefits to test
whether similar improvements can also be made elsewhere.
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Four fifths of applicants for Pension Credit are asked
to mail valuable original documents to the Department, which can
introduce delays and may discourage some elderly people from
applying. There is a network of local charity and public
sector offices willing to check documents but customer awareness of
this service is low. The Department should investigate the extent
of demand for this service, and whether investing in this network
to increase capacity would offer value for money. Depending on the
outcome of this research, consequential changes would be needed to
telephone call centre scripts to ensure vulnerable customers in
need of this service are made aware that there is an alternative
network of local offices able to validate documents in person.
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Attendance Allowance is not well understood, which has
contributed to its not being claimed by all those
eligible. The Department plans to carry out further
research on awareness of Attendance Allowance, which it should also
use to identify what problems customers have in understanding it,
including whether the name of the benefit is a source of confusion.
It should then test solutions to make the benefit more intuitive
and comprehensible. The Department also needs to clarify the
guidance explaining the eligibility rules, and should use
analytical information from Attendance Allowance applications,
combined with its research on take-up rates, to test awareness of
the benefit among vulnerable customers.