Jobcentre Plus computer systems are failing to process 40 percent of claims, the minister responsible admitted to MPs on 25 January 2006.
The MPs on Parliament's Work and Pensions Committee highlighted figures obtained by the Public and Commercial Services union indicating that Jobcentre Plus contact centres are failing to process claims successfully for two-thirds of calls.
Lesley Strathie, chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, told MPs that her organisation had introduced a "tactical solution" to help staff process claims without having to double key information.
Strathie said that initially when the system was introduced only 22 percent of Job Seekers Allowance claims were processed electronically, although this figure has now increased to 60 percent. The Income Support computer system is the worst performing, processing only 58 percent of claims electronically.
"We are having a CMS (Customer Management System) release in March to bring further improvements," Strathie told the committee. She said the system will reject a claim if there is any mistake in it, such as an apostrophe in the wrong place or a misspelling.
Margaret Hodge, the Department for Work and Pensions minister responsible for Jobcentre Plus, maintained that although staff are often forced to process claims manually, the quality of the service has not been affected.
"The electronic transfer system needs 100 percent accuracy so if there is a mistake it rejects the data," she said. "The reason is to mitigate against fraud.
"By not using the electronic transfer we have to do it manually. It is one of the issues we are having to confront. It doesn't impact on the proper delivery of the process. It does not have the impact that is being suggested."
Hodge also said she was surprised by the low number of claims made on the Internet.
"In an ideal world we would like people to be able to make claims electronically and to process those claims electronically, but we are quite a long way off that."
Hodge also defended the Department for Work and Pensions' offshoring plans revealed earlier this week in a leaked document.
"What is happening, and what could be happening is that some of the ICT functions are outsourced. EDS, a supplier of ICT, are outsoucing. They are moving some of their development work to Egypt... but there is no intention for us to take processes overseas."
Hodge told MPs that the department is looking generally at outsourcing more of its business – particularly records, print and distribution functions.
