Department for Work and Pensions: Staff

(asked on 5th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many additional staff members have been (1) redeployed from other parts of the civil service, and (2) hired as new staff members, to handle increases in benefits claims. [T]


This question was answered on 12th May 2020

The Department for Work and Pensions has agreed and planned the transfer of 967 staff from Other Government Departments. 500 colleagues have been redeployed from other parts of the civil service already, with 475 of them currently still working for DWP. A further 397 redeployments are scheduled in the week of 11 May.

The Department has offered 1344 posts to people who were already on waiting lists following successful interviews for positions with the department, 543 people have accepted and pre-employment checks have been completed for 377 of these.

In addition, the Department is engaged in an exercise to directly recruit temporary staff on six-month contracts, many of whom are Jobcentre Plus customers recommended for these roles by their Work Coaches. So far, 1984 provisional offers of employment have been accepted, subject to background checks being completed.

We have also engaged 315 agency staff with a further 350 due to start work scheduled in the week of 11 May.

We have also committed to re-deploying 10,000 DWP staff to critical frontline services.

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