Supplementary memorandum from DWP
1. EFFICIENCY
SAVINGS—IMPACT
ON FRAUD
INVESTIGATION OFFICER
HEADCOUNT (Q18)
The transformation of the Department's approach
to reducing losses from fraud and error over the last few years
has aimed to achieve significant efficiencies in the number of
staff deployed in support roles, alongside substantial redeployment
into a number of front-line areas. The Department has restructured
the way it works in this area, developing a new standard operating
model focusing on a more intelligence-led approach to fraud investigations
and smarter ways of working.
The main change has been the creation of a single
Fraud Investigation Service, combining the national and regional
operations into one organisation, centred in the areas where most
fraud is known to occur.
This restructuring has been supported by the
introduction of a customer compliance approach which involves
face-to-face contact with the customer, generally involving an
extended interview when a full criminal investigation is considered
unsuitable. The intention is to correct benefit entitlement, ensuring
that all information is obtained to enable an over/underpayment
to be calculated, and to ensure that the customer understands
their responsibility to notify future changes in circumstance
together with the potential consequences of not doing so. Ultimately,
the aim is to tackle non-reporting of changes of circumstances
by customers and low level benefit fraud quickly and effectively.
In addition to staff in the Fraud Investigation
Service, many other staff have responsibilities for ensuring the
correct payment of benefit and reducing fraud and error. They
include, in particular, front-line Financial Assessors in Jobcentre
Plus, a role which has been substantially expanded in recent years.
The table shows staff numbers for April 2004
and latest available figures.
| April 2004 | February 2007
| Difference |
| Fraud | 4,269 | 3,063
| -1206 |
| Customer Compliance | Role did not exist
| 869 | +869 |
| Financial Assessors* | 1488
| 4221 | +2733 |
| | |
|
* The Financial Assessor role has been introduced nationwide
as part of the Jobcentre Plus rollout.
Customer Compliance staff who work in Jobcentre Plus address
risks in benefit cases where a full fraud investigation is not
deemed appropriate, but where substantial action is still needed
to:
— put it right and recover any overpayment; and
— ensure future compliance by customers with their
responsibilities to report changes in their circumstances on time.
2. DISABILITY EQUALITY
DUTY—DDA AWARENESS
(Q22)
The information provided relates to people being able to
name the Disability Discrimination Act when asked if they know
of a law that protects the rights of disabled people. There is
not a specific question relating to the Disability Equality Duty.
Awareness among disabled people
The Office for National Statistics Omnibus Survey is used
to measure awareness of the Disability Discrimination Act. This
can be broken down between those who are and are not themselves
disabled.
The ONS measure of awareness has been asked periodically
since 1996 (the Act was introduced in 1995) and the trends are
as shown below:
| % of respondents aware of the DDA
| | | |
| 1996 | 2001
| 2005 | 2006 |
| All | 40 | 62
| 73 | 73 |
| Disabled people | 39 | 55
| 67 | 68 |
| Non-disabled people | 40 |
64 | 76 | 75 |
| | |
| |
Awareness among service providers
Research was conducted in 2006[1]
with employers and service providers, which included questions
on awareness of the Disability Discrimination Act and allowed
comparisons to be made with a similar survey conducted in 2003.
The results showed a significant increase in awareness:
| % of respondents aware of the DDA
|
| 2003 | 2006
|
| Employers (employment provisions) | 62
| 79 |
| Service Providers (service provisions) |
33 | 65 |
| | |
3. MYSTERY SHOPPER
PROGRAMME (Q40)
It is important to note that the design of the Mystery Shopper
programme does not include the distribution and communication
of scenarios to staff. However, verbatim feedback is provided
by the Mystery Shopper contractor to Jobcentres to help them improve
their service. In order to reduce the risk of the range of scenarios
used by the Mystery Shoppers becoming common knowledge Jobcentre
Plus has increased the number of scenarios that staff could be
tested against from 18 in 2005-06 to 34 at the end of 2006-07.
Jobcentre Plus offices are also supported by the production
of guidance for staff to respond to customer enquiries as this
assists staff in providing accurate information to customers.
The Department continues to review and improve its Customer
Service. For 2007-08, it is implementing a number of changes to
strengthen further the integrity of the measure and widen the
range of customer services against which Jobcentre Plus is tested.
These include:
— bringing the target up to date with the way that
Jobcentre Plus delivers its business to customers by including
measures appropriate to telephony and E channels, as well as testing
the accuracy of information provided on its website;
— reducing over-reliance on the accuracy element
of the Mystery Shopping Programme from 33% in 2006-07 to 17% of
the target in 2007-08;
— redesigning the scenarios for use by the Mystery
Shopper contractor to simulate better a customer enquiry, thus
reducing further the likelihood of the Mystery Shopper being identified.
This means that there will be several versions of a scenario for
a single topic area in use at any one time. Questions will be
asked and phrased in different ways by the Mystery Shopper to
represent better the range of enquiries received from Jobcentre
Plus' customer base; and
— redesigning the feedback methodology so that offices
will not receive verbatim comments on the accuracy element of
the Mystery Shopper questions, thus reducing the temptation to
script responses to overly rigid questions. The feedback will
be more generic, for example, "you were questioned about
JSA entitlement and scored X% of the points available". Offices
will also be signposted to where relevant accurate guidance/information
can be accessed for future reference.
4. BPRP (Q52, Q55)
With regard to the Benefits Processing Replacement Programme,
I promised to provide the Committee with a more detailed account
of how the figure of £73 million of value had been arrived
at. This figure is based on management estimates and is currently
subject to a detailed validation of the BPRP finances. The figure
breaks down as follows:
| (£million)
|
| Customer Case Management for the Disability and Carers Service
| 8 |
| Siebel licences | 4 |
| Cúram IT platform | 13
|
| Development and Testing platform | 28
|
| Re-usable planning and design products |
17 |
| Customer Benefits Delivery Strategy for Jobcentre Plus
| 3 |
| Total | 73 |
| |
As regards the expenditure of £10m after the August
2006 decision to close the BPRP programme, this sum was for work
completed up to the August decision but invoiced and paid after
the close down date. The payments relate to internal staff charges,
contractors, some non-staff charges, consultants, IBM, solution
support and hardware, licences and software.
5. EFFICIENCY CHALLENGE—OVERALL
SPEND (Q57, Q59)
The Department follows the reporting requirements set for
Gershon efficiency savings which do not require it to record investment
costs separately from the efficiencies made. The efficiencies
which DWP reports derive both from core management best practice
initiatives and from specific efficiency projects. It is not possible
to identify separately how much has been invested in order to
achieve Gershon efficiency savings.
6. PRODUCTIVITY—DWP
EQUIVALENT HEADCOUNT
IN 1998, 1999 AND
2000 (Q64, Q66)
Using available information estimates have been constructed
on a like-for-like basis as to what approximate staffing numbers
might have looked like between April 1998 and April 2000 had DWP
existed at that time. The figures are subject to wide margins
of error and should be treated as such.
April 1998—114,000
April 1999—116,500
April 2000—116,000
Notes
1. Figures are rounded to nearest 500.
2. Figures are full time equivalents.
3. Figures take account of major Machinery of Government
changes since 1999.
4. Figures are based on current Office for National Statistics
public sector staffing definitions.
Staffing trends in the following years
Following the creation of the DWP in 2001, staffing levels
initially rose with more staff being recruited in:
— Jobcentre Plus to support new initiatives arising
from the welfare modernisation programme;
— the Pension Service to establish the new Pension
Centres;
— the Child Support Agency because of increased
workloads and to deliver the Child Support reforms.
From a baseline of around 120,000 when the Department was
formed in 2001 staffing rose to a peak of around 132,500 by March
2004—the baseline date for the current efficiency challenge.
1
"Organisations' responses to the DDA"-DWP Research
Report Series, 410. Back
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