The evidence that the DWP is a department in meltdown is growing rapidly, with the news that mandatory reconsiderations for personal independence payment (PIP) are now taking almost twice as long as they did a year ago.
In reply to a written question on whether the DWP “plans to take steps to reduce the clearance time for mandatory reconsiderations of Personal Independence Payment decisions.” DWP disability minister Stephen Timms answered:
“We recognise that the most recent data shows an increase in Mandatory Reconsideration clearance times, from 37 calendar days in December 2023 to 71 calendar days in July 2024. To address this, we are recruiting Mandatory Reconsideration Decision Makers and have made overtime available to increase productivity.”
What effect these steps will have, with the DWP under pressure from so many other quarters remains to be seen.
For example, earlier this year we revealed that it could take up to ten years to clear the current PIP review backlog, with reviews taking on average 290 days to complete.
There was also the disclosure in May of this year that only 1 in 25 child DLA claims is decided on time. In 2016-17 96.8% of child DLA claims were processed within the target time of 40 working days. By 2023-24, this had fallen to just 3.5%.
For PIP, the percentage has fallen from 85.1% processed within the timescale of 75 working days in 2016-17 down to 51.7% in 2023-24.
We also know that only a limited number of work capability reassessments are taking place, having stopped completely during Covid.
And the carer’s allowance overpayment scandal is largely down to the fact that there are not enough staff to respond to alerts from HMRC about potential overpayments, with 50% never investigated.
The fact that the DWP are pushing ahead with issuing managed migration notices to 800,000 employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants by December 2025, whilst unable to cope with their existing workload, seems foolhardy in the extreme.
As Citizens Advice, who deliver the managed migration Help To Claim support service for the DWP have pointed out “because the ESA migration timetable has been accelerated so quickly, we’re concerned that DWP doesn’t have the capacity to deliver this support adequately and at scale — for example, whether DWP has enough staff to carry out all the home visits required.”
There is an “enhanced support journey (ESJ)” available to vulnerable claimants who fail to make a claim for universal credit. But as Citizens Advice also explain, “because the ESJ isn’t a legal process, there aren’t formal mechanisms to hold the DWP accountable if people fall through the net.”
So, for the DWP, managed migration at breakneck speed may be a fairly risk free process. For the most vulnerable claimants, sadly it is not.
There is the flood of managed migrations from ESA to UC which won’t end before December 2025. And there is the likely change to the work capability assessment due to be announced soon. Plus there are wholesale changes to the role of jobcentres, which will be unveiled in a forthcoming white paper.
