A survey of 5,000 DWP staff by the PCS union has revealed an understaffing crisis that is putting vulnerable claimants at risk of inappropriate sanctions, underpayments and general lack of support. This comes as Labour considers a potentially massive round of changes to disability benefits and, if Milburn’s review is accepted, attempts to push hundreds of thousands of disabled young people into jobseeking.
The survey found that:
- 76.6% of members said there are not enough staff
- 72.9 of members report backlogs of work
- 71.9% of members said staff shortages cause problems for service-users frequently or all the time
- 53.5% of members work unpaid to catch up on work
- 75.9% of members experience stress because of workloads.
We’ve published a small selection of quotes below which give a flavour of the level of service provided by jobcentres
“Vulnerable customers regularly do not receive the support they need and often get missed or receive inappropriate sanctions”
“There are no quality interactions only claimants being herded in and out of jobcentres and staff not able to update commitments and complete FSF [flexible support fund], case reviewing, respond to journals as they have 30+ appointments daily”
“I have seen underpayments sit for over 6months because we don’t have enough staff. Customers’ journals have sat longer than 3 weeks for staff on long term sick .”
“Jobcentre customer facing appointment, when a staff member is not available for any of lifes' reasons, there is no capacity to support Universal Credit claimants as individuals. So, you turn up on time for your 10 mins a fortnight with your work coach, but it starts 5 mins late and then you only get 5 mins as they are covering theirs and a colleague diary. This then means both people miss job & training opportunities and especially the youth think “what a waste of time it all is with so little help in 5 mins every two weeks.”
“Decisions relating to mandatory reconsiderations are overdue which often has an impact on payments.”
“Service users are often waiting a long time to have there appointments as appointments before ran over time. This is due to many of our customers having complex needs and 10-15 minutes is not enough.”
To trust the shambolic and understaffed DWP to manage the kind of rise in caseload that the Milburn review threatens is an act of wilful negligence.
Throwing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at the DWP and its private sector partners will not turn it into an efficient and effective source of support for disabled young people forced to look for work or face sanctions. And if the DWP chooses to ignore its duty to provide reasonable adjustments to young disabled claimants forced into jobseeking by the Milburn review’s recommendations, it may face a tsunami of legal actions under the Equality Act 2010.
You can read the full survey report here.
