Calls unanswered at benefit centres hit by computer flaws

One million calls from jobless people seeking their first benefit payment have gone unanswered because of teething problems with a computerised call centre system, according to confidential Department for Work and Pensions documents.

People have to wait for up to six weeks to get benefits because processing centres cannot keep up with the workload. The delays follow cuts in staffing as part of the government's decision to scrap 80,000 civil service jobs over three years.

The worst-performing centres are in Sheffield, Hastings, Coventry and Poole, where more than half of calls are never answered. Even the best performing centres in Blackburn, Paisley and Grimsby, fail to answer one in five calls.

Figures collected by senior managers for Jobcentre Plus show how many calls have been made and answered since introduction of a new call centre and IT system earlier this year. The DWP has already shed 14,215 staff, making it the lead department in Whitehall for job cuts.

Under the changes the agency has stopped handling most benefit claims at local offices and now tells people to ring call centres, who then pass their claim to processing centres. As a result MPs and citizens' advice bureaux are being deluged with complaints.

Labour MP Anthony Wright told MPs: "In Suffolk, only three of the 13 sites take claims ... Soon, people from North Walsham [in Norfolk] will be required to choose to attend one of three sites, necessitating an up to 50-mile round trip."

David Laws, the Liberal Democrats' works and pensions spokesman, said: "The government is totally complacent about this. I have had letters from Jobcentre Plus admitting that nine out of 24 centres have had to go back to clerical processing because of IT problems, yet officials claim it is getting better."

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said yesterday: "Job cuts and the new IT system, all supposedly in the name of greater efficiency, are leading to people having to wait four to six weeks before they receive their first benefit payment when it used to take about 12 days.

"What we are seeing is a system designed to help some of the most disadvantaged in society in meltdown as service levels deteriorate due to crude job cuts. The department needs to wake up, recognise the damage being wrought and halt the job cuts."

James Plaskitt, a junior minister at the department, told MPs this week: "The introduction of new processes has not been without teething problems.

"We are working hard to deal with the difficulties ... our handling of calls is improving on a week-to-week basis. The Jobcentre Plus management board is determined to maintain that improvement, and I am determined to give it every support in achieving that objective."