The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) isn’t doing enough to inform the public of changes it has made to digitise disability benefit payments, according to a new report.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said there is a risk that Government will deliver a new service for disability benefit claimants without the important improvements to the claimant’s experience. As such, “it faces significant risks that the PAC has seen derail other major government programmes.”
The report noted that the DWP established the Health Transformation Programme (HTP) in 2018 to digitise the disability claims process, enable online applications, improve case management, and triage claims. However, it warned that the greatest risk to this work is that the DWP focuses exclusively on the delivery of a new digitalised service, without achieving the important transformational change for the experience of claimants.
It said the Government is more likely to improve the service if it works with disabled people and their representative bodies but raises concerns that “the DWP has not done enough to communicate and engage with the public and claimants about what they can expect from the revised service.
“While some charities and stakeholder groups welcome the Department’s proposed changes, the Department has not promoted the Programme widely to the public. The DWP does not currently intend to consider a national campaign to improve awareness until it reaches the stage of scaling up the programme, which will not happen for a couple of years,” said the report.
Transforming users’ experience
In June, The National Audit Office (NAO) raised concerns that the DWP’s plans to digitise and transform the application and assessment process for disability benefits may incur “cost overruns, further delay, or a watering down of its ambition.”
If you liked this content…
The DWP expects the HTP to cost £1 billion, of which it has spent £168 million up to March 2023. It expects to achieve benefits equivalent to £2.6 billion by improving the speed and accuracy of decisions, giving claimants better support, and improving claimants’ trust in decisions made. But the report warns that the DWP’s approach to working with contractors could leave the taxpayer “vulnerable to contractual disputes, higher costs and delays.”
“Disability benefits are designed to help people both with extra living costs and with everyday life,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, deputy chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
“The Government’s work to reform the complicated, stressful and lengthy application process is hugely significant for the approximately 3.9 million claimants, their relatives and advocates. These reforms will only be successful if they truly transform service users’ experience, rather than simply delivering the bells and whistles of a new digital platform.
PAC’s recommendations
Clifton-Brown noted that “The Government’s record of introducing large IT programmes has not been good. But the witnesses demonstrated that the implementation so far has been thorough and well thought through.”
As such, the PAC has recommended the DWP produce annual reports stating both how well its evaluation of the new service is progressing against targets, and assessing whether it is on track to achieve its benefits for claimants and taxpayers.
“These reforms are at a critical juncture now that they are soon to be at the test stage, a point at which our Committee has seen other major government projects come off the rails. The DWP must expand its focus to genuinely put claimants right at the heart of this work if it is to achieve the wider benefits of this programme, and we hope the recommendations in our report serve as a helpful guide in this regard.”
