PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Universal Credit (24 June 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training has been given to staff who have been redeployed from the Child Maintenance Service to help process the increase in claims for universal credit resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

The Department responded at pace to the increase in customers and the upsurge of UC claims during the COVID-19 outbreak, c10,000 DWP staff were trained and redeployed to business critical roles to support Universal Credit (UC) case management.

Those staff redeployed to UC received training to enable them to support DWP to pay claimants on time and in full. The learning has been updated to incorporate COVID-19 processes which have been streamlined for UC and shows staff how to:

• Carry out their role by managing their caseload
• hand off work for complex cases and payments, and
• communicate with claimants via journals and outbound telephone calls

We have moved to virtual delivery of training and to cope with increased capacity have on-boarded additional temporary Learning Delivery Officers. To meet longer term learning delivery requirements, we are building our cadre of Learning Delivery Officers with a blend of permanent and temporary recruitment.

Alongside virtual delivery, we are enhancing the support given to colleagues both pre and post training, to ensure staff have a quality learning experience.

Answered by:
Mims Davies (Conservative)
3 July 2020