“The government is cutting the time work coaches spend with claimants: prioritising box-ticking over adequate career advice is a false economy. If the government wants more people working, it should invest in work coaches and give them adequate time to do the job properly.”
The PAC has previously raised concerns on the reduction of support for benefit claimants driven by a shortage of work coaches, and it warns that Jobcentres are “persistently stretched”.
It comes as the government plans to merge the existing Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service (NCS) into a new joined-up careers service by October 2026. This is part of its plans to ‘Get Britain Working’, to encourage more people into work and off benefits.
The Labour government faced significant controversy in 2025 over its plans to cut disability benefits and was forced to U-turn on the most major of its plans. Proposals for PIP cuts have been paused until a review of the disability benefits assessment process, carried out by disability minister Stephen Timms in consultation with disability groups.
This review is set to conclude in autumn, although an interim update is expected to be published before then.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the PAC, said: “The summer of last year was consumed by debate around proposed changes to the benefits system, with government insisting changes to PIP would be mitigated by support for disabled people and people with long-term conditions to get back into work.
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“Our report exposes the incoherence with which government made these arguments, while cutting the all-important support provided by work coaches which could help those same people access the labour market.
“Our focus will remain trained on what mitigating action will be taken by DWP on this issue, as well as its overall efforts to modernise its services by reducing its reliance on out-of-date technology. For claimants who rely upon this system’s proper functioning, this programme of transformation cannot come quickly enough.”
The DWP has said it hopes to make the disability benefit claims process more efficient, and it is currently testing an online application process in a few postcodes. However, the PAC has claimed that three years ago the DWP said it would be processing up to 20% of PIP claims using this new service by 2026.
A spokesperson for the department said: “We’re fixing the broken welfare system we inherited by giving claimants the support they need to move into good, secure jobs and out of poverty.
“We’ve redeployed around 1,000 work coaches to help sick or disabled people who have been left behind, alongside the most ambitious employment reforms for a generation. These reforms are being delivered as we replace outdated systems through our ambitious £647million modernisation programme.
“We always aim to make PIP award decisions as quickly as possible, and the Timms Review is looking at PIP as a whole to make sure it is fit and fair for the future.”
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The Big Issue has reported extensively on the challenges faced by disability benefit claimants, who have said they have faced “psychological trauma” at the hands of the system.
Charles Gillies, policy co-chair at the Disability Benefits Consortium and senior policy officer at the MS Society, said: “PIP is supposed to cover the additional costs of being disabled, like adapted vehicles or mobility aids, so we’re extremely concerned to hear of long delays in accessing this vital support.
“From long waiting times to stressful and humiliating assessments – which fail to take invisible and fluctuating symptoms into account – PIP is not fit for purpose and is failing disabled people at every turn.
“We urge the government to reduce waiting times and to work with disabled people through the Timms Review, including those with MS, to improve the assessment. It’s vital that everyone gets the support they’re entitled to while being treated with fairness and dignity.”
The PAC has called on the DWP to provide more detailed data on waiting times, including the longest wait recorded in 2024/25. It has also raised concerns that “unacceptably poor service levels could continue for some time” unless further action is taken.
Clifton-Brown added: “When elected as chair of the PAC, I promised to return to areas of weakness in government policy delivery identified in our scrutiny that were not improving quickly enough. One of those areas is the treatment by the DWP of disability benefits claimants, who, our report finds, may now expect a reliably poor service from the department.
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“Our committee received reassurances three years ago that improvements would have manifested by now; we are now told that they are a further three years off. This is simply not good enough for our constituents, who we know risk being pushed into debt or poverty by a department unresponsive to their needs.”
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