The Work and Pensions Committee has
today published the terms of reference and minutes of
meetingsfrom the DWP’s Serious Case Panel, which was
set up by the Department to consider serious systemic issues from
serious cases involving people using the benefits system,
including cases in which people have died.
The Secretary of State committed to providing the Committee with
the documents during the evidence session earlier this week on
how her Department learns lessons from such cases.
The Committee has been asking for more information on the work of
the Panel and more transparency about its role since the
Committee was first set up in March, in correspondence with the
Secretary of State about DWP’s response to a National Audit Office
report. The NAO report concluded that the DWP did not
track findings and recommendations from its serious case
investigations and so did not know whether improvements had been
made, and that the Department did not use these investigations to
identify any systemic issues.
Rt Hon MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee,
said:
“The workings of the Serious Case Panel have been shrouded in
secrecy until now, so it is welcome that the Department has
finally agreed that some information can see the light of day.
But publishing terms of reference and minutes of meetings is
surely the bare minimum that the public, and Parliament, would
expect. The Department is making steps in the right direction,
but it still has a long way to go to prove that it has learned
lessons from its past failures. The Committee will be keeping a
very close eye on this.”
