DWP does not yet have enough evidence to demonstrate that its activities to reduce the cost of mistakes by customers have been value for money. Although mistakes are difficult to detect, correct and prevent, the scale of overpayments and underpayments demonstrates a clear need for improvement.
The majority of carers who receive benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are satisfied with the support they receive, worth up to £2 billion a year. The Department is delivering carers’ benefits effectively and has made improvements in processing claims in the last few years. But at least a fifth have difficulties […]
The head of the National Audit Office, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has today qualified the accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions for the 20th consecutive year. The accounts have been qualified because of the material level of fraud and error in expenditure on state benefits, except for State Pension which has a […]
DWP has not reduced the mistakes made by staff processing benefits. In 2009-10 it overpaid an estimated £1.1 billion and made underpayments of £500 million. However, the scale of the challenge facing the Department should not be underestimated.
A review by the National Audit Office of overpayments to public service pensioners totalling £90 million has found a complex and fragmented administrative process, prone to error, and for which there is no clear overall responsibility. The process requires effective joint working between the parties involved (the five public service pension schemes, HM Revenue and […]
Report examining the underpayment of state pension, setting out how this happened and what DWP is doing to rectify this.
At a cost of £1.47 billion by March 2009, Train to Gain had supported employer-focused training for over one million learners, and had developed a skills brokerage service with which a majority of employers was satisfied. But while Train to Gain has achieved undoubted benefits for employers, the NAO has concluded that over its full […]
Jobcentre Plus, The Pension Service and the Disability and Carers Service provided services to 22 million customers in 2007-08, over 80 per cent of whom were satisfied with the services they received. Nevertheless, there were 70,000 complaints recorded in 2007-08. For those customers who do complain, the complaints system is easily accessible and the majority […]
Today the National Audit Office has reported that the Department for Work and Pensions increased recoveries of benefit overpayments from £180 million in 2005-06 to £272 million in 2007-08, and preliminary results suggest that the Department has achieved its recovery target of £279 million for 2008-09. But recoveries are not keeping pace with the rate […]
The Department for Work and Pensions has made good progress in tackling benefit fraud, which is estimated to have fallen from an estimated £2 billion in 2000-01 to £800 million in 2006-07, a substantial achievement by its staff, although definitional changes have helped. Tackling benefit fraud is inherently difficult as it is in the nature […]
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, has today qualified his opinion on the Department for Work and Pensions accounts for the eighteenth consecutive year. This is because an estimated £2.5 billion has been lost to fraud and error in benefit payments, and because of uncertainties over the debts created by customers being […]
This report looks at whether the government is achieving value for money in its management of child maintenance.
The Jobcentre Plus programme rolled out a network of over 800 offices, combining the functions of the former jobcentres and social security offices, and was completed for £314 million less than the original £2.2 billion budget according to a National Audit Office report released today. The project was well managed, particularly the procurement aspect, where […]
The Pensions Regulator has been effective in establishing clear links between its statutory objectives and how it goes about meeting them, and has made good progress in addressing the problems left by the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority (Opra). The good progress has been acknowledged by the Pensions Regulator stakeholders: 78 per cent of whom believe […]
The NAO has reported today that, despite some progress, there is still a significant gap between the employment rate for the ethnic minority population and that for the general population which could take thirty years to eliminate. The Department for Work and Pensions’ strategy to tackle this has had some success, but in the NAO’s […]
The Pension Service has made real and substantial progress since 2002 in helping pensioners to secure their entitlements using new and well thought through approaches, but will need to build on this work to improve take-up still further. A report today by the National Audit Office highlights the need to develop local work to reach […]
The Ministry of Defence offers a good range of resettlement support for those leaving the Armed Forces, and most people adapt back into civilian life easily and comfortably. There are a minority of people who have a more difficult time finding employment, housing or making the social transition. A National Audit Office survey of those […]