The PCS union has warned of “staffing chaos” at the DWP, with work coach roles being particularly affected as the government seeks to hire thousands of new staff, having just made hundreds of workers redundant.
According to the PCS the DWP needs around 5,900 staff to carry out a Targeted Case Review of incorrect UC claims.
However, this means not only mass recruitment, but also moving large numbers of current DWP staff into new roles to carry out the review.
This is at a time when the DWP have only recently made 800 staff redundant.
As a result of the staffing chaos, additional ‘support measures’ are being put in place in Jobcentres to manage the workload of work coaches.
This includes reducing the frequency of work coach contact with some claimants from fortnightly to monthly and shortening some meetings from 50 minutes to 30 minutes.
The PCS argues that:
“The difficulty that DWP is having in recruiting is apparent from the raft of panic measures that have been introduced to mitigate against it . . . It is clear that working for DWP is an unattractive proposition. The DWP really needs to improve on poor pay and terms and conditions to ensure the most vulnerable in society receive the kind of service they deserve.”
To make matters even worse, at the Conservative party conference the Chancellor announced an end to civil service expansion with an immediate cap on the civil service headcount, with a view to reducing it to pre-pandemic levels
As the PCS put it:
“PCS members have been reporting for years that chronic under-staffing and backlogs of work have led to toxic working environments, with stress levels going through the roof and pressure ramping up as more is expected for less. Yesterday's announcement by the chancellor will only add to the concerns of our members.”
With the DWP failing to manage its current workload, the idea that tens of thousands of additional claimants can be removed from the LCWRA group and given effective support to help them into work is clearly nonsense.
It suggests that the sole purpose of making the WCA much harsher is simply to save money by reducing the amount of benefit claimants receive, with not the slightest interest in what happens to them as a result.
