People claiming disability benefits are getting “unacceptably poor service” from Government as they wait on average 10 times longer for their calls to be answered, MPs said.
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) took on average 26 minutes and 53 seconds to answer calls from employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants in the year to March 2024, the Public Accounts Committee said.
This compared with an average wait of only two minutes and 45 seconds for universal credit claimants.
The committee concluded claimants of disability benefit in particular “are receiving an unacceptably poor service”, including time taken to process their claims.
Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said in some cases people “are literally calling for help and receiving no answer”, and said the public “would be forgiven for thinking the state is Awol (absent without leave) just when it needs it most”.
Sir Geoffrey said: “Our report’s disheartening findings illustrate the stark disparity of experience between claimants for disability benefit and other users of the system.”
He urged the DWP to “do more to ensure that claimants are reunited with the money to which they are entitled, as well as to understand the needs of vulnerable claimants”.
The report also highlighted “unacceptably high” levels of fraud and error the system.
In the year to March 2024, £9.5 billion of benefit expenditure – which equates to 6.7% and excludes state pension was overpaid, up from £8.2 billion (6.6%) in the previous 12 months.
Underpayments also rose, from claimants getting an estimated £3.5 billion (1.5%) than they were eligible for in the year to March 2023, to £4.2 billion less (1.6%) in the year to March 2024.
The DWP has previously blamed an “increasing propensity for fraud in society”, which it said began before the pandemic and has continued to “place an upwards pressure on fraud in the welfare system”.
Last year, the department said it had estimated the “long-term behavioural trend creates a headwind that would cause fraud levels to grow at around 5% per year without action to reduce it”.
But the committee was critical of the DWP’s “dangerous mindset” and insisted it is the department’s job to “improve its defences and ensure benefit claimants receive the right amount of money”.
Sir Geoffrey said: “We are also as concerned at the picture of growing underpayments as we are with overpayments, and have little sympathy for the DWP’s argument that this rise is driven by a growing propensity for fraud in society.
“This amounts to saying that the DWP’s job is too hard to do well – not a defence that this committee is prepared to accept.”
Among its recommendations, the committee called on the department to set out how it will improve its speed in answering calls from ESA claimants; to ensure people get what they are entitled to by making it easier for claimants to provide updates on changes of circumstances; and to set out how it will use the extra £110 million it received in the autumn Budget to counter fraud and reduce overpayment rates.
The committee also warned of the potential negative impact on vulnerable customers of the department’s use of artificial intelligence (AI), with Sir Geoffrey saying “the onus is also on the DWP to prove it is using these powerful tools in a safe and fair manner”.
Richard Kramer, chief executive of national disability charity Sense, said the report’s findings are “no surprise”.
He said: “We’ve been told again and again by disabled people that getting the help they’re entitled to has been an ordeal.
“In our research, half of people with complex disabilities said the benefits application process made the impact of their condition worse – it shouldn’t be like this.
“Disabled people have been paying the price of a broken benefits system for far too long.
“Sense is calling on the Government to use the upcoming Health and Disability Green Paper to make sure the welfare system allows disabled people to apply for benefits independently and with dignity.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “We have reduced phoneline waiting times and are providing tailored help for customers with additional needs while also uprating benefits by 1.7% this April to ensure that customers get all the support they are entitled to.
“The report does not consider that we are already taking action on fraud and error through our new Fraud Error & Recovery Bill, which will help us protect claimants by stopping errors earlier alongside saving an estimated £1.5 billion of taxpayer money over the next five years.”