The Public Accounts Committee has released a report stating that personal independence payment (PIP) and disability living allowance (DLA) claimants were underpaid by £1.62 billion last year, making disabled people the most underpaid group of claimants. The main reason for underpayments is claimants not reporting a change of circumstances, partly due to a lack of trust in the DWP, but also because one third of calls that do get made go unanswered.
The PAC’s criticism of the DWP in its report, “DWP Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24”, is wide ranging and damning.
The committee points out that employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants wait an average of nearly 30 minutes for the DWP to answer the phone, whilst universal credit (UC) claimants wait an average of less than three minutes.
Meanwhile the PAC found that 34% of calls to the PIP enquiry line go unanswered. And as many of our readers can attest, even callers that are “answered” never get anywhere near to speaking to a human being.
The PAC was also unimpressed that whilst 96% of new state pension claims are processed within the target time of 10 days, only 52% of PIP claims were processed within the much longer target time of 75 days.
The committee argued that “DWP does not understand well enough the experience of vulnerable customers and customers with additional or complex needs.” It found that whilst the department is using AI to try to detect vulnerable customers who contact them by letter, it has no system for identifying vulnerable customers who phone.
In addition, the PAC was concerned about the use of AI to identify potential benefits fraud, because of the possibility of bias within the system. It noted that while the DWP says it has carried out a “fairness impact assessment” which raised no concerns, it refuses to publish the report.
The committee said that benefits claimants received £4.2 billion less than they were entitled to in 2023-24, up from £3.5 billion the year before. £1.1 billion was due to official error, but £3.1 billion was due to “unfulfilled eligibility”. This is where a claimant fails to provide accurate information about their circumstances and so receives less than they are entitled to.
The main reason for unfulfilled eligibility underpayments is claimants failing to report a deterioration in their condition or an increase in their needs. Many claimants attempt to report a change of circumstances by telephone, but the committee noted that only 66% of calls that even make it as far as a queue are actually answered.
The DWP’s excuse is that the same people who answer calls also process benefits and that “local leaders had to make daily decisions about what resource they allocated to answering calls and what resource they devoted to processing claims.”
As a result, the PAC found that underpayments for DLA and PIP were the highest of any benefits, with 11.1% of DLA claimants missing out on £750 million and 4% of PIP claimants missing out on £870 million.
The DWP admitted that most underpayments stemmed from people with health conditions not informing them and that it is important that claimants trust that they will be treated fairly if they do report a change.
You can read the full “DWP Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24” report from the PAC here.
