House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Fifty-Sixth Report

3 Improving the customer experience

15. Customers value the service they receive from their Personal Advisers, particularly when they see the same advisor with whom they are able to build up a relationship. Customers will be handled by the same person during the initial intervention period, but if they gain a job and then return to benefits, they may be allocated a new adviser. Evidence from research with customers suggests most advisers are considered to be approachable and provide valuable support. Customers have however also reported that advisers often appear busy and do not always have sufficient time to deal with their case appropriately. On average Personal Adviser spend 41 minutes with each customer, although the figure varies by customer and also depending on the purpose of the interview.[27]

16. The process for looking for a job now starts by the customer telephoning Jobcentre Plus Direct, which is a call centre service. Staff identify which benefit a customer may apply for and arrange a time to call the customer back to take further details, normally within 24 hours. The next step will be an appointment with a personal adviser. While the ability to conduct much of an initial claim for benefit via the telephone can simplify the process and benefit people in rural areas, there are some customers for whom the telephone is not the best way of interacting with a government agency.[28] Customers with mental health difficulties or those people whose first language is not English may find dealing with a contact centre more difficult than speaking to an official face-to face.

17. Contact centre performance has been poor in the past as the Committee reported earlier this year,[29] and in some areas both advisers and customers complain of delays in booking interviews and of errors which can have an impact on the length of time people must wait before receiving benefits.[30] Jobcentre Plus believes that performance has now substantially improved and they are revising the process for handling first contact claims for benefit. By May 2007, they had completed the rollout of a national 0800 freephone service for all customers who wish to make new or repeat claims to benefit.[31] Many errors and delays are also caused by customers failing to provide the necessary corroborating evidence in good time to enable the claim to proceed. On occasion customers are asked several times for the information and have 30 days to provide it.[32]

18. Customers with complex needs or specialised circumstances want advisers who are understand the barriers they face and who are able to offer effective support. Currently advisers in larger offices tend to specialise in one or two customer groups. Multi-skilled generalist advisers, able to deal with the broad spectrum of claims, may be necessary in smaller jobcentre offices. Jobcentre Plus pointed to the need for staffing flexibility and the ability for advisers to be trained to deal with more than one customer group. A lack of specialist advisers could disadvantage customers with more complex or unusual needs.[33]

19. Aspects of the experience of seeking a job have improved in recent years. There have been developments in the physical environment with the creation of the Jobcentre Plus office network. In the past to sign on for benefit people had to wait in long queues in uninviting social security offices, whereas they now make appointments to be seen. Information about jobs was available only for the local area, whereas now people can also use touchscreen terminals to search for details of jobs anywhere in the country. Personal advisers do however operate in open plan offices, which can lead to some lack of privacy, and also result in interviews being interrupted by other customers.[34]

20. The benchmarking work undertaken by the National Audit Office suggests that the relationship with customers is influenced by the culture and philosophy of the advisory service. Other employment organisations say adviser flexibility and autonomy to experiment with different methods of helping the customer is central to their success, whereas Jobcentre Plus advisors appear to be more constrained in the approaches they can take to help people find work.[35] External providers also say that their relationship with some customers is helped by being distanced from the formal requirements of the benefits and sanctions regime. Arrangements in the United Kingdom are however less stringent than in parts of the United States of America where there is, for example, a greater expectation that mothers of young children will return to work.[36]

27 C&AG's Report, paras 20-22; Qq 14, 26 Back

28 C&AG's Report, Figure 4; Q41 Back

29 53^rd Report from the Department for Work and Pensions, Delivering effective services through contact centres, 2005-06 Back



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