Thirty-Sixth Report
of Session
2024-25 Department for Work and
Pensions Jobcentres
Introduction from
the Committee
The Department for Work and Pensions (the Department) relies on
its network of 646 jobcentres across Great Britain to help people
seeking employment or wanting to progress in work. In 2023–24,
the Department spent £1.2 billion on jobcentres (excluding
estates, digital and other corporate costs), with staff costs
comprising 93% of this total.
Within each jobcentre, work coaches play a critical role working
directly with Universal Credit claimants to identify their needs
and provide support. The Department uses six labour market
categories to determine the support claimants receive, based on
their earnings and personal circumstances. In October 2024, there
were 7.2 million people claiming Universal Credit. Of these, 2.5
million were below the earnings threshold where the Department
can impose conditions on their claim, such as a requirement to
meet regularly with a work coach.
In November 2024, the government published a white paper, Get
Britain Working, with a long- term ambition of an 80% employment
rate. The white paper set out plans for reforming employment
support including a new jobs and careers service, bringing
together jobcentres with the National Careers Service in England.
The government followed this, in March 2025, with a green paper,
Pathways to Work, which set out proposals to reform health and
disability benefits and employment support, with the aim of
helping more disabled people and people with health conditions to
work.
Based on a report by the National Audit Office, the Committee
took evidence on Thursday 15 May 2025 from the Department for
Work and Pensions. The Committee published its report on 2 July
2025. This is the government's response to the Committee's
report.
Relevant reports
Government response
to the
Committee
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Recommendation implemented
- The Department for Work and Pensions (the department) takes
very seriously its responsibilities with regard to ensuring
claimants have the right support from work coaches and the
government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
3.Thedepartment wrote to the Committee on
30 June, following the session on 15 May, setting out the
revised approach to determining resourcing levels and priorities.
As that letter set out, this new approach involves making certain
elements of the local flexibility framework permanent.
- The letter also set out the evidence on which the decision to
implement these changes was made. As requested by the Committee
in their subsequent letter of 10 July,
the department has provided more detail in its letter of 9
September 2025 on the evidence related to these changes
alongside this Treasury minute and therefore considers this
recommendation to have been implemented.
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Target implementation
date: Summer
2026
- The department's current Workforce Plan is based on
existing funding arrangements and policy principles. The
Workforce Plan is not a static document and is reassessed
throughout the year.
- As part of the Jobs and Careers Service Programme the
department will develop a strategic workforce plan, within the
next 12 months, to support the transition to the new
organisation, reflecting updated policy principles that have
been agreed. Whilst the final design is still evolving, the
plan the department will develop will be based on the best
understanding of the future state, allowing it to anticipate
workforce needs and remain flexible as the organisation
continues to take shape. Throughout this period, the department
will continue to have a focus on ensuring appropriate levels of
Work Coach resourcing in line with the Treasury's allocated
funding and departmental priorities.
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Target implementation
date: before
the end of
2025
- Building upon the Get Britain Working
White Paper Analytical Annex, which published a range of
analysis on Universal Credit, Jobcentres and the labour
market for the first time, the department is developing a
labour market publication strategy to bring additional
transparency to the data it holds. The department expects
this will include publishing into-work rates and some labour
market data at a Jobcentre Plus District level. The
publication date will be
formally announced in due course, as the department progresses
the steps needed to add this publication to the DWP Statistical Work
Programme.
- This publication is not expected to include data on Work
Coach numbers. While the department does hold that data, it is
not assured to official statistics quality standards.
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Recommendation implemented
- The department is committed to refreshing its evidence base
and recently published its Evidence and
Evaluation Strategy 2025. Goal 1 outlines how research
and evaluation will inform our Labour Market reforms.
- The Get Britain Working
White Paper outlined that the department is running two
Universal Credit trials to understand the impact on claimant
employment outcomes of:
- work search review meetings using different channels,
- fewer work search review meetings for the first 13 weeks.
- The trials are being evaluated via impact and process
evaluations. Findings will be published by the end of 2026,
after trials have completed and supporting analysis has taken
place. Consideration will then be given to how the department
can continuously learn, to deliver future service improvements
and efficiencies as part of a wider Jobs and Careers Service
Evaluation Strategy, which is under development.
- The department is also using test and learn principles, to
test the whole Jobs and Careers Service vision via several
Pathfinders. This will allow the department to see how its
employment support offer interacts with local support for young
people, those with health conditions and other government
initiatives such as inactivity trailblazers. Testing in these
Pathfinders will be small-scale, with learning iterating over
time. The department's evaluation strategy for the Jobs and
Careers Service is under development and the department intends
to publish research in line with Government Social Research
processes at a future date.
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Recommendation implemented
- Funding for 2025-26 is intended to design and test the new
Jobs and Careers Service.
£15 million has been allocated to undertake a series of tests and
trials, of which the Wakefield Pathfinder is one test, £5 million
to explore alternative delivery solutions, £20 million has been
allocated to progress digital activity which will underpin the
Jobs and Careers Service,
including developing and testing prototypes for the new digital
service. £13 million has been allocated to cover resources to
enable delivery. This includes coaching and training for staff,
branding development, activity to engage employers as well as
staffing. This also includes a
£2 million contingency applied to all programme activity.
- The department is taking an agile approach, and
re-allocations could take place during the year within the
programme governance.
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Recommendation implemented
- Through the Get Britain Working White Paper, the department
has already set out a roadmap for how the government's
long-term ambition of achieving an 80% employment rate will be
realised. Pathways to Work will contribute to this ambition by
supporting disabled people and people with long-term health
conditions into, or toward, employment, backed by
£1 billion a year of funding by 2030 and a total of £2.2 billion
over four years.
- Coordinated cross-government action is key to this
long-term ambition. The department's reforms sit alongside
wider government initiatives, including the launch of Skills
England to create a shared national plan to boost the nation's
skills, creating more good jobs through the modern Industrial
Strategy, strengthening employment rights through the Plan to
Make Work Pay and creating a National Health Service fit for
the future through the 10 Year Health Plan for England.
- Alongside the headline outcome of an 80% employment rate,
the department has published a set of intermediate metrics. The
department will publish annual progress updates against these,
with the first update in Autumn 2025. The department will know
its plan is working when it sees improvements in these metrics,
which include:
- regional employment rate gaps narrowing;
- health-related inactivity rates falling;
- the disability employment rate gap reducing;
- the proportion of young people not in education, employment
or training falling;
- female employment rate rising;
- employment rate gaps between lone parents and parents in a
couple narrowing;
- increasing employment among coupled families where at least
one parent is out of work.
- The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation.
Target implementation
date: Autumn
2025
6.Thedepartmentmanagesjobcentreperformancethroughacomprehensiveframework
that includes key performance indicators (KPIs), performance
discussions, and various support mechanisms.
- This system is currently being reviewed, including to reflect
changes in the way the department manages Jobcentre performance
as its plans for the new Jobs and Careers Service develop.
- Although the department is unable to determine precisely the
specific contribution that its jobcentres will make towards our
80% employment rate ambition, due to the wide range of factors
that affect the employment rate, the department will consider
this as part of its refresh of performance.
- Alongside the headline outcome of an 80% employment rate, the
department has published a set of intermediate metrics. The
department will publish an update on its progress against these
annually, with the first update in Autumn 2025.
