The Department for Work and Pensions is considering outsourcing up to 2,500 new jobs for the delivery of Universal Credit targeted case review work.
The department plans to hire nearly 6,000 new officials by March 2025 but acknowledges that filling all these positions in-house may not be feasible. This move comes after the department faced challenges in meeting its recruitment targets. The PCS union, representing over 42,000 DWP officials as of May, has raised concerns about the outsourcing plan.
The DWP introduced a Targeted Case Reviews team, outlined in its "Fighting fraud in the welfare system" policy paper in May 2022.
The team's objectives include preventing customers from falling deeper into debt, identifying underpayments, expediting suspected fraud cases for investigation, and providing intelligence on new methods to prevent fraud and errors in the welfare system.
This is part of the department's efforts to strengthen its defences against fraud and error.