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CAB evidence on the first year of employment and support allowance administration

This Citizen's Advice report expresses concerns that the substantial increase in resource made available to Jobcentre Plus in response to the recession has been concentrated on jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and the social fund, resulting in a lack of support for ESA claimants.

CAB statistics taken over the last six months show that the percentage of bureaux enquiries dealing with poor administration of ESA (now over two per cent) is 50 per cent higher than the equivalent for IB.

The report highlights a number of problems which claimants encounter including:

• delays in identifying or failure to identify people who need face to face help as opposed to the normal telephone service.
• problems handling claims where people are still eligible, under the old rules, for incapacity benefit or income support.
• delays in claims being processed.
• delays in allocating claimants to the support group.
• lack of clarity in official letters.
• problems arranging medicals.
• insufficient information on letters notifying the claimant he or she is fir for work.

You can download the full report which includes a number of recommendations from the Citizen's Advice link below.

More information

• citizen's advice

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