UK Inquiry Tracker

Jobcentres

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry

Opened: 26 Mar 2025 Closed: 22 Sep 2025 Parliament page

The Government plans to reform the system of employment support, including by merging Jobcentre Plus with the National Careers Service. There are over 600 Jobcentres across Great Britain, forming a network which is the Department for Work and Pension’s main mechanism for supporting Universal Credit (UC) claimants into work and … Read more The Government plans to reform the system of employment support, including by merging Jobcentre Plus with the National Careers Service. There are over 600 Jobcentres across Great Britain, forming a network which is the Department for Work and Pension’s main mechanism for supporting Universal Credit (UC) claimants into work and increase their income. In October 2024, there were 7.2m people claiming UC. Of these people, 2.5m were earning less than the threshold whereby their UC claim would be subject to conditions, which could include a specified number of hours of looking for work, or regular meetings with a work coach. In a 2021 report , the PAC found that the quality of claimants’ experience and whether they received the right support would depend on the DWP’s ability to integrate an additional 13,500 new work coaches into its organisation and manage their performance effectively. The Work and Pensions Committee launched its own inquiry into Jobcentre reform in 2025 , examining the Jobcentre’s role and customers’ experience of it, as well as how they can work better with external organisations and careers advisers to get people into work. The National Audit Office’s 2025 report on supporting people to work through Jobcentres aimed to establish a baseline for the current system. Based on the NAO report, the PAC will hear from senior DWP officials on subjects including: Supply and demand of support, including for work coaches; Performance of Jobcentres against DWP’s current objectives; and Variations in outcome for different demographic groups or parts of the country. If you have evidence on these issues please submit it here by 23:59 on Thursday 1 May 2025. Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere. Please note that the Committee’s inquiry cannot assist with individual cases. If you need help with an individual problem you are having, you may wish to read the information on Parliament’s website about who you can contact with different issues . Show less

5 Recommendations

26 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

8 Letters

1 Event

Activity timeline 11 events

20 Apr
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee relating to Jobce…

15 Sep
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the 36th Report of Session 2024-25, Jobcentres, 09 …

10 Jul
2025

Correspondence

Letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions relating to Jobcentre work coaches, 10 July 2025

2 Jul
2025

Report published

36th Report - Jobcentres

2 Jul
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the oral evidence session held on 15 May 2025 on Jo…

9 Jun
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the follow up on the oral evidence session on 15 Ma…

9 Jun
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Director General, Labour Market and Poverty at the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the oral evidence session o…

9 Jun
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the follow up on the oral evidence session on 15 Ma…

19 May
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions relating to the Fraud and Error Estimates and the Unfulfilled E…

15 May
2025

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

15 May
2025

Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · The Grimond Room, Portcullis House

Committee event

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

15 May 2025

View on parliament.uk

Barbara Bennett · Department of Work and Pensions Katherine Green · Department for Work and Pensions Sir Peter Schofield KCB · Department for Work and Pensions

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
36th Report - Jobcentres	HC 823	2 Jul 2025	31	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

31 results

2 Recommendation Accepted

36th Report - Jobcentres

Develop a workforce plan to ensure sufficient work coaches for the new jobs and careers service.

We are concerned that the Department will continue to not have enough work coaches to meet the growing demand for support. The shortage of work coaches has been caused by the Department securing inadequate funding from HM Treasury and by … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees and commits to developing a strategic workforce plan within 12 months as part of the Jobs and Careers Service Programme, which will anticipate workforce needs and ensure appropriate work coach resourcing.

HM Treasury

Jobcentres

Activity timeline 11 events

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Recommendations & Conclusions

Develop a workforce plan to ensure sufficient work coaches for the new jobs and careers service.

Increase transparency by regularly publishing jobcentre-level data on work coach numbers and into-work rates.

Publish a strategy for evaluating employment support reforms and regularly refreshing the evidence base.

Write to the Committee outlining committed and planned spending of £55 million for jobs service.

Publish a roadmap for achieving 80% employment rate and jobcentres' specific contribution and monitoring.

Committee took evidence from DWP on jobcentres following C&AG report.

DWP consistently had fewer work coaches than estimated need across jobcentres.

Recruitment and retention challenges contribute to work coach shortfalls in jobcentres.

Government plans to establish new universal jobs and careers service by 2028-29.

DWP's universal jobs service relies on digital tools, with uncertain impact on overall processing times.

Redeployment of work coaches for health conditions reduces support for other Universal Credit claimants.

More than half of jobcentres reduced claimant support due to work coach shortages.

DWP claims reduced jobcentre support does not impact outcomes despite outdated evidence.

DWP attributes declining into-work rates to external factors and increasingly complex claimant caseloads.

Concerns raised about quality and consistency of jobcentre support despite DWP assurances.

DWP considering making temporary flexibility framework measures permanent, pending impact assessment.

DWP's new jobcentre performance framework lacks historical data for most key indicators.

National into-work rate declined significantly with substantial regional and district variations.

DWP attributes declining into-work rate to external factors, but its scope is limited.

Department for Work and Pensions does not publish vital work coach and jobcentre performance data.

Significant variation in work coach headcount observed across different jobcentres and districts.

Jobcentre support model based on outdated Jobseeker's Allowance evaluations, not Universal Credit.

Developing new evidence for claimant support via randomised control trials proves challenging and lengthy.

New trials for claimant support model currently underway, with results expected 2025-2026.

Department for Work and Pensions explores new evaluation methods for quicker jobs service development.

£55 million funding for jobs and careers service development allocated across three key areas.

Pathfinder projects trialling innovative job support, placing work coaches in GP surgeries.

A substantial amount of £55 million jobs and careers service funding remains unallocated.

Employment rate consistently falls short of government's long-term 80% target since 2018.

Achieving an 80% national employment rate remains a significantly stretching aspiration for the Department.

Department established eight new outcome metrics to monitor employment reforms and publish data annually.

Government Response AI assessment · 14 of 5 classified

Correspondence 8 letters