UC case managers work load stats

There’s the NAO key facts page 4/5 of the attached just in case you are thinking of that?

Extract from the July PAC oral evidence regarding costs per claim

Q238     Chair: Mr Schofield?

Peter Schofield: The Report refers to the £837 million, but the investment element is included within the other investment costs, and we still come within the overall budget.

Q239     Chair: So are you saying you will passport over some of the costs?

Peter Schofield: A lot of the fixed costs can only be used for Universal Credit live service, so they have been depreciated away. It is more the value you get from the learning, the training and development and the partnering that Neil has described.

Q240     Chair: The other question for you on the money, Mr Schofield: you have planned efficiencies and you will not get them if it costs more than £173 per claim. What if you do not meet that target? Where will the money come from?

Neil Couling: First, 94% of the costs fall by virtue of the case load and conditionality changes. Like for like, the unit cost would currently be about £202, as opposed to the unit cost in the Report—I forget what it was, but Josh will know the figure—

Joshua Reddaway: It is £699.

Neil Couling: Yes, £699 right now. It would be £202 if I had a magic wand and could change the case load to be fully rolled out. There is some more automation and efficiency that I have to drive into the service, but it is not as much as you might think, looking four or five years out. As I said, because I need a stable operation to be able to safely move people in the managed migration phase over, I don’t want to be making big changes to the system then.

Peter Schofield: Those are the points I referred to earlier from paragraph 3.19; the mix will change that. I think we have real confidence that we will deliver the unit cost reduction that comes automatically as the case mix changes.

Q241     Chair: But if you don’t, do you have plans? Where will you plan to do other things in the budget to make it balance?

Peter Schofield: Then you come on to a wider question about negotiations on the budget for DWP. We have a budget through to—

Chair: You might go to the Treasury cap in hand. There we go; that is an early bid for the next spending review.

Q242     Shabana Mahmood: I thought I had read that there had been a cut to universal support, in that it started at £239 million and is now at £170 million. Is that correct—a £69 million cut in funding for universal support?

Peter Schofield: The point there is around the take-up, which Neil was describing earlier.

Q243     Chair: So there has not been a cut; it just hasn’t been used.

Peter Schofield: It just hasn’t been drawn on. You are right: there are two sets of numbers in the report, one at the beginning and one towards the end.

Q244     Chair: It is not that it wasn’t there—you haven’t reduced the total available.

Peter Schofield: No, and one other point I was going to make on take-up was about training our frontline people to ask the right questions to get clients to take it up. So the right question is not, “Would you like budgeting support?”, because most people say, “No, I’m fine”, but enabling the conversation to happen in the jobcentre where people understand, “What are your issues in terms of managing your budget?”

Chair: The nudge thing.

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/public-accounts-committee/universal-credit/oral/86629.html

Andyp5 Citizens Advice Bridport & District - 25 September 2018 03:22 PM

There’s the NAO key facts page 4/5 of the attached just in case you are thinking of that?

Yes! Thanx Andy I knew my brain cells hadn’t totally deserted me - p56 gives lots of lovely figures!!