Pressure for staff cuts prolongs benefits backlog

Jobcentre Plus faces further problems

Performance problems at Jobcentre Plus (JC+) are being caused by government targets to cut staff before IT-enabled procedural changes have had time to settle in, according to a leaked internal memo from JC+ chief executive Lesley Strathie.

In March the then minister for employment and welfare reform Margaret Hodge wrote to Strathie expressing concern that serious problems last summer will recur this year. Hodge cited ‘a large volume of correspondence’ from MPs that highlighted problems with benefits processing.

The JC+ customer management system (CMS) is vital to government plans to centralise benefits processing and reduce headcount. But staffing and IT issues have caused huge backlogs of claimants trying to telephone through to JC+ contact centres.

Contingency measures including a reversion to clerical procedures have been in place since September and have helped cut queues. But national figures seen by Computing indicate significant ongoing problems.

Data for the last week in April showed that more than half of all attempts to automatically transfer data from CMS to legacy processing systems still fail, more than half of callback deadlines are missed, and only 26 per cent of follow-up appointments for Jobseeker’s Allowance are booked within the four-day target.

‘To meet the government’s [Efficiency Review] target we need to make headcount reductions before we have modernised our business processes,’ writes Strathie.

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