Permanent secretary, Department for Work and Pensions

What are you most proud of achieving in 2009?

The only possible answer is the way in which the entire department, and Jobcentre Plus in particular, has reacted to the additional pressures generated by the recession.

When this hit us, at a pace and severity which few commentators had expected in early 2009, we had inevitable doubts about our ability to step up to the huge additional volumes which became apparent. To give some idea of scale, new claims to Jobseeker’s Allowance from unemployed people went up from a weekly average of 45,000 in January 2008 to over 100,000 a year later.

It is a remarkable testimony to the efforts of Jobcentre Plus that we have not only coped with those volumes, and continued to hit our key targets for the speed of benefit-processing and support to customers, but that we have also been seen as a key part of the government’s response to the recession. We have not only helped ministers to design successive packages
of support for unemployed people, but also moved to implement them at great pace.

The recent award by Sir Gus O’Donnell of his Cabinet Secretary’s Award to the whole of Jobcentre Plus was a remarkable, but richly deserved, tribute to the agency and its people.

What was your most difficult decision in 2009?

The very hard choices we had to make at the beginning of the year to move people and resource from other parts of the department to support Jobcentre Plus.

Within a remarkably short space of time, we moved entire call centres, and many of their  people, from our Pension, Disability and Carers Service and our shared services, into Jobcentre Plus.

None of that was easy, and it had inevitable consequences on our services in other areas. But without it, Jobcentre Plus would have found it even more difficult to maintain its core services.

What challenges do you expect to face in 2010?

The key challenge will be to make further efficiencies while continuing to drive up our standards of customer service. Many people believe that those are mutually contradictory objectives. I do not.

Through our change programme, we have already shown that we can make major efficiencies whilst still driving up service standards. For example, we now only need people to make one phone call to us to tell us of a bereavement. We then take the action to ensure that every part of our Pension, Disability and Carers Service gets the information. Previously, people had to make up to five phone calls to us at a time of great distress. That was not just bad service, it was also very expensive.

What concrete plans do you have for cutting expenditure in 2010?

Our existing plans are set out in our business plan for 2009-2012. But beyond that, we will be rolling out more of our services online, both as a contribution to further efficiency but also to give a more convenient service to our customers. This year, for the first time, we have enabled people to claim contributory Jobseeker’s Allowance on line. Since the service went live in August, over 60,000 people have done so. The next key milestone will come in the spring, when people will be able to claim state pension online as well.

What is your favourite national, local or family Christmas tradition?

We have a large extended family and, by tradition, we invite them all to Christmas lunch. Somehow we manage to fit them all in, and everyone gets fed!