Jobcentre Plus and its parent, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), are facing a testing time: after several years of substantial reorganisation and efficiency measures which, in essence, shrank the organisation, Jobcentre Plus has been faced with an unforeseen and huge rise in demand for its services.

Since October 2002, when the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service were merged, Jobcentre Plus has rationalised 1,500 offices down to 741 Jobcentre Plus offices, 32 call centres and 79 benefit-processing offices. In the same period, the merger and the cross-government efficiency programme mean the new organisation has shed around 20,000 posts.

In the background, DWP has been making major changes to its IT systems, including new equipment in offices and a new network linking up all the new telephone advisers. A 2008 briefing note by the National Audit Office (NAO) gives an idea of the scale of transformation at the DWP: 200 separate change programmes were in progress – many of them affecting the largest IT estate in Europe – which in total would cost as much as £2,042m.

The pace of change concerned members of the Commons work and pensions select committee. In a 2006 report, they warned that the combination of two major change programmes – Gershon efficiency savings and the office reorganisation – meant “too much has been done too quickly”, staff had been put under strain and “service levels have suffered”. A later NAO study, however, sounded much less worried. It praised the office reorganisation programme for being largely on time and under-budget. Despite earlier concerns that the move away from face-to-face meetings would be disliked by users, the NAO found that 86 per cent of users were “fairly or very satisfied” – although there were concerns about getting through on the phone. Overall, it seemed that the major reforms had been a success.

Then the downturn came. Since Oct-Dec 2007, when unemployment was 1.6 million (five per cent of the economically active population) the number of people out of work has risen to 2.47 million (7.9 per cent) in June-August 2009. The highest unemployment figures since April 1997 have brought a huge surge in work for Jobcentre Plus. Call volumes increased by 68 per cent between January 2008 and January 2009, and the number of online claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) has increased by 250 per cent.

DWP’s chief information officer (CIO) Dean James admits that the internal reforms meant “tough times”, but he believes “the business modernisation that has been done really did stand the department in good stead”. While employment rates have nose-dived, the organisation has continued to meet all its targets, James points out, delivering major changes such as the move from incapacity benefit to the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), and the provision of online applications for JSA. And service standards have been maintained, he says: 99 per cent of calls are answered, for example, with the average caller waiting just 13 seconds. “Even the most flexible private sector organisations would find a 68 per cent increase in calls a very significant challenge, and the department has met that challenge,” says James proudly.

Critics

There are some who question the wisdom of the move away from face-to-face advice to telephone and online services. Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) negotiations officer Charles Law says such measures are “relatively trivial compared to having people to do the job and the offices where staff can see the unemployed”. He complains that only contributions-based JSA is available online, although more online services are coming; James says the department did not want to take a “big bang” approach to such changes.

Law is even more critical of the increased use of telephone advice – users have to call before they can get an appointment at their nearest Jobcentre Plus office. This “doesn’t deliver a personalised service”, argues Law; phone staff have had limited training, and callers have to re-explain their situation in subsequent phone calls. Jobcentre Plus is “focusing on answering calls quickly,” he says. “They may have enough people to answer the calls, but they may not be able to answer the question.”

Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Steve Webb agrees that there is “no substitute for a human being”. He is concerned that callers are not getting through, and has also complained to DWP that the training and scripts for telephone advisers do not ask for enough information early on, resulting in delays to claims-processing and payments. Webb believes the current system means “people fall through the net or you have to spend more time chasing things up”. Face-to-face meetings might be more expensive, he argues, but they “would have cut through all that”.

Those claimants who struggle with the phone and fall through the net often turn to Citizens Advice, says the charity’s benefit and tax credits policy officer, Katie Lane. Bureaux “see quite a lot of people turned away from the [Jobcentre Plus] office; they come to us for help with filling in the form,” she says. These vulnerable people, such as those with mental health or communication problems, are often reluctant to push for a face-to-face meeting, she adds. James, however, disputes claims that users are unhappy with the telephone service: “That is certainly not borne out by the feedback I see.”

MPs and unions are also concerned about the time pressures being placed on staff; Webb worries they have been reduced to the unrewarding role of “ticking boxes”. To ease the workload, ministers have put the 25 office closures scheduled for 2009 on hold and announced the recruitment of 16,000 advisers. Critics of the modernisation programme, such as Law, see this as a u-turn and as vindication of their opposition. Law complains that “people had to pull out all the stops”, working extra hours and foregoing breaks, “to keep the show going while they waited for the new staff”.

Law also believes that help provided by 450 staff from other parts of DWP is simply “robbing Peter to pay Paul” – but James disputes the idea that other areas of work have fallen behind in their work as they second staff to Jobcentre Plus. The “very hard work” of staff has ensured progress across the DWP, says James. “I take my hat off to frontline support staff,” he adds.

The bottom line is that, in the face of a major reorganisation and a massive increase in demand, the organisation continues to deliver and meet targets. In fact, it is processing JSA claims in 10 days – ahead of the target. That fact is not disputed by Law, Lane, Webb or others, although they do have concerns about how the service is provided.

Ultimately, a rethink of the way services are provided was necessitated by falling administration budgets. The DWP had to save money, and it has done so by having fewer offices, fewer staff, and more self-service via the phone and internet. In fact, Jobcentre Plus’s critics are talking about longstanding concerns, not problems that have been caused by a surge in demand. As Lane says: “We haven’t got evidence to suggest Jobcentre Plus is falling apart; [the problems are] largely the same things we’ve always seen.”

Although opposition politicians and unionists have raised legitimate concerns over the creation and reform of Jobcentre Plus, it seems likely that the DWP’s major programmes of change have in fact equipped the service to respond quickly to a sharp and deep recession that arrived just as those reforms neared completion. The agency is more flexible now, and can deal with upsurges in demand. Sure, the DWP didn’t make these changes in order to prepare for the current economic dip – but, had it not been reformed, Britain’s benefits and unemployment support systems might now be facing a much bigger set of problems.