Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of staffing levels in universal credit centres; and what proportion of fixed-term staff working in universal credit centres are on (a) permanent contracts and (b) zero-hour contracts.

The Department regularly reviews both the numbers of people working in Universal Credit service centres and their performance to ensure we have the right number of people available to manage claimants Universal Credit claims. Services and staff training is assessed, both in real time to meet any short term peaks in demand and also reviewed for longer term improvements to ensure the service continues to meet customer service expectation.

Our priority is to give all employees, including those delivering Universal Credit, the necessary resources, including manageable workloads, so that they can carry out their roles successfully.

The size of a Case Manager’s caseload is dependent on a number of factors, including the complexity of the caseload and experience of the case manager.

All staff on fixed-term contracts are employed on the basis of agreed full or part time hours. No staff are employed on zero-hour contracts.