DWP: 11,000 jobs shed in last year

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Local Government, Universal Credit

Monday 15th October 2012 - 4:03pm

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has shed nearly 11,000 full-time equivalent members of staff since March 2011, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

In its departmental overview - one of 17 the NAO is producing covering its work on each major Government department - it said that as of 31 March 2012, the DWP employed 99,958 staff at a cost of £3.2bn, which constitutes a reduction in staffing levels of nearly 11,000 full-time equivalents since March 2011.

The department, which is responsible for paying benefits and helping people into work, has reported savings of nearly £325m a year through the staff reductions.

A spokesman said 85% of the staff reductions had come from the core department functions with 15% coming from arms length bodies. He said reductions had come from a combination of natural turnover and those on fixed term contracts not being replaced. Quizzed on whether the department would need to increase resources for the roll out of Universal Credit, he said it was "something still being developed".

The DWP also picked up savings through reducing the size of its total estate by 61,000 square metres - saving around £24m each year - through improved procurement practices and reining in spending on consultancy services from £13.8m in 2010-11 to £8.8m in 2011-12.

The department’s total expenditure in 2011-12 was some £168bn, compared to £161.5bn in 2010-11. In the last year it paid benefits totalling some £160bn, with £27.8bn (17 per cent) of this paid out as grants to local authorities for housing benefit and council tax benefit.

The NAO report said fraud and error arising from benefit expenditure has been a "challenge for the department for a number of years". The department’s estimate of total overpayments due to fraud and error in 2011-12 is £3.2bn, or 2.0 per cent of total benefit expenditure; a small decrease from 2.1 per cent in 2010-11.