NAO head Amyas Morse said: ‘There are signs of progress, but the department will have to improve in all three areas if its March 2015 targets are to be realistic.’
By then the DWP must save £16.9bn from benefit and pension payments, and £2.7bn from its running costs.
This year it is due to spend £155.6bn on benefits and pensions and £7.8bn on administration.
Running cost savings were expected to come largely from increased automation and staff reductions, but the NAO warned these should be coherent and not a series of random cuts.
The report, Reducing costs in the Department for Work and Pensions, says: ‘Any deterioration in the accuracy of benefit decision-making or levels of fraud, for example, could increase the risk of overpayments.’‘It is therefore crucial that the department executes reductions in running costs in a structured way so as not to undermine the reforms to the benefit system.’
But it says the DWP lacks a model of how to make such structured cuts, even though its agency, Jobcentre Plus, has ‘developed its model of how it will operate in the future to a greater extent than other parts of the department’.Having such a ‘target operating model’ would mean DWP managers were ‘more likely to be able to prioritise what changes are needed and to explain to staff what their role might be’, the NAO says.
I wonder what the DWP response to the Audit Office report will be - these cuts will have an effect on Wales and its to our advantage for our Government here in Wales to ensure that the comments made by the Audit Office are noted and actioned
By then the DWP must save £16.9bn from benefit and pension payments, and £2.7bn from its running costs.
This year it is due to spend £155.6bn on benefits and pensions and £7.8bn on administration.
Running cost savings were expected to come largely from increased automation and staff reductions, but the NAO warned these should be coherent and not a series of random cuts.
The report, Reducing costs in the Department for Work and Pensions, says: ‘Any deterioration in the accuracy of benefit decision-making or levels of fraud, for example, could increase the risk of overpayments.’‘It is therefore crucial that the department executes reductions in running costs in a structured way so as not to undermine the reforms to the benefit system.’
But it says the DWP lacks a model of how to make such structured cuts, even though its agency, Jobcentre Plus, has ‘developed its model of how it will operate in the future to a greater extent than other parts of the department’.Having such a ‘target operating model’ would mean DWP managers were ‘more likely to be able to prioritise what changes are needed and to explain to staff what their role might be’, the NAO says.
I wonder what the DWP response to the Audit Office report will be - these cuts will have an effect on Wales and its to our advantage for our Government here in Wales to ensure that the comments made by the Audit Office are noted and actioned
1 comments:
'these cuts will have an effect on Wales and its to our advantage for our Government here in Wales to ensure that the comments made by the Audit Office are noted and actioned'
First Minister Carwyn Jones has started with his speech on the increase in homelessness in Wales at the Shelter Cymru conference, but as always with Welsh politicians is his speaking out for the public's benefit or for party political advantage?
Post a Comment