The work and pensions select committee is struggling to scrutinise the government's welfare reform measures, its chair Dame Anne Begg told Civil Service World, as the committee prepared to publish a report on the Work Programme.

Asked in an interview whether her select committee is able to keep track of all of the changes to the welfare system, she said: “No, we can’t cover everything … suddenly there are green papers appearing everywhere. We can’t cover it all.” Asked whether government plans are therefore being properly scrutinised, she responded: “That’s part of our job and we can’t possibly do it all.”

Begg raised concerns that the Department for Work and Pensions is making changes that will not be noticed or scrutinised until after they have come into effect. “We’re worried that things are sneaking through with nobody realising,” she said.

Begg argued that scrutiny problems are being exacerbated by a lack of detail in the government’s Welfare Reform Bill, which leaves many decisions to secondary legislation. “I think the bill committee is finding it really difficult. Some of the members of my select committee are on the bill committee, and I think it is quite difficult because a lot of [the Welfare Reform Bill] is very broad brush,” she said. “From the government’s point of view [it] is a framework, an enabling legislation, and the detail will come through regulation. When is the regulation going to get the parliamentary scrutiny that it has to have?”

She added: “That’s the difficulty we have as a committee: how do we analyse something when the government hasn’t made up its mind? And how can we get people’s reaction to what the government’s proposing if the government hasn’t made up its mind?”

Begg stressed the need for “detailed scrutiny of the regulations, because the problem all governments have discovered with any kind of form of social security and welfare is that there are all sorts of unintended consequences … The regulations will need to be analysed properly. Now, that’s normally the role of the Social Security Advisory Committee, but I don’t know if they’ll have time to do it all”.

Her committee also published a reporttoday into the Work Programme, warning that welfare providers will face a "significant new challenge in providing services" as claimants migrate from Incapacity Benefit onto Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker's Allowance.

Begg said: "The financial stakes within the Work Programme are very high. Service providers, including many voluntary sector organisations, may find it challenging to remain financially viable under the payment model, and the Government could face significant costs if delivery were to collapse in a particular region."

In particular, the report warned of the financial risk to small, specialist welfare contractors, and said that "DWP should be proactive in reminding prime contractors that a key aspect of their role in the Work Programme is to bear financial risk, rather than passing it on to subcontractors unfairly or disproportionately."

Written by Joshua Chambers