What we provide
How we administer benefit claims and how we co-operate with others to bring about significant welfare reform.
Every working day we: Pay in excess of £47million in Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance and Carer’s Allowance benefits, and take more than 20,000 calls through the DLA/AA Helpline. |
The Disability and Carers Service became an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions on 1 November 2004.
We employ more than 7,000 people working on a full-time and part-time basis nationally and serve more than 5 million customers.
Our central customer objective is to enable independence by supporting the diverse needs of disabled people and carers.
Disability and Carers Service provides financial support for disabled people and carers through the administration of the following benefits:
- Disability Living Allowance – care and mobility.
- Attendance Allowance.
- Carer’s Allowance.
- Vaccine Damage Payments.
Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance are not income-related benefits and are designed to help meet the extra costs faced by disabled people.
Disabled people who are unable or virtually unable to walk can use the Disability Living Allowance Higher Rate Mobility Component to obtain a car or scooter through the independent charity – Motability.
Carer’s Allowance makes a contribution to the financial needs of people who are caring for a disabled person for 35 hours a week or more.
Vaccine Damage Payments are awarded to people who are severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against a specified disease.
To help achieve this our expenditure in 2006-07 will be more than £14 billion.
Our organisation
We have ten Disability Benefit Centres located in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Bootle, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Wembley.
Disability Benefit Centres administer new claims for Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance and are responsible for cases for the first 13 weeks, after which the responsibility for them is transferred to Warbreck House, Blackpool.
Our former Disability Benefits Unit at Warbreck House in Blackpool has recently been restructured into six units. This is a key stepping stone in our modernisation programme. Four of these units are geographically aligned to the Disability Benefit Centres. They maintain and process Disability Living Allowance / Attendance Allowance cases and also deal with applications from eligible customers applying for the Motability Scheme. One unit handles new claims from people living in South East England and trials new ways of working. The sixth unit is home to the DLA/AA Helpline and the Benefit Enquiry Line.
The Carer’s Allowance Unit in Preston deals with Carer’s Allowance and Vaccine Damage Payments.
Over the next few years, Disability and Carers Service will bring in substantial changes across the whole of our business. This will continue to be a challenging time, entailing a reduction in both the number of people we employ and the amount of office space.
While undoubtedly this is not an easy process, it is an essential part of the streamlining process to deliver a first-class customer service.
Investment in the capability of our staff and managers and more advanced IT systems will be key areas of activity in our progress.
Our Change Programme will oversee all aspects of this transformation, driving the improvements to customer services, ways in which we work with our partners and meet the efficiency targets set by the Treasury.
Human Resources, Finance and Performance Management Team and Customer and External Relations Directorate contribute to the development programme, provide specific services to Disability and Carers Service operations and represent Disability and Carers Service in Department for Work and Pensions corporate forums.
- The Human Resources role is to enable Disability and Carers Service managers to meet their business goals through their people and helping Disability and Carers Service staff achieve their potential to deliver business results.
- The Finance and Performance Management Teams role is to ensure systems are in place to safeguard the effective use of public funds.
- The Customer and External Relations Directorates role is to act as the customer champion. It focuses on customer service, internal and external communications and working with the Department for Work and Pensions Partners and the Voluntary and Community sector.
These are based at various sites, but mainly at Norcross in Blackpool.
Our role in the Department for Work and Pensions
The Department for Work and Pensions’ aim is to promote opportunity and independence for all. Disability and Carers Service makes a significant contribution to supporting the department in delivering its objectives. The Department for Work and Pensions’ objectives are to:
- Ensure the best start for all children and to end child poverty by 2020;
- Promote work as the best form of welfare for people of working age while protecting the position of those in greatest need;
- Combat poverty and promote security and independence in retirement for today’s and tomorrow’s pensioners;
- Improve rights and opportunities for disabled people in a fair and inclusive society; and
- Ensure customers receive a high-quality service including levels of accuracy.
As well as delivering Disability and Carers Service-specific objectives, our work supports the department in delivering Welfare Reform. In addition, we help other Department for Work and Pensions businesses to meet their own specific objectives. For example:
- Disability Living Allowance helps address child poverty for families with disabled children;
- Disability Living Allowance and Independent Living Funds help working-age disabled people to work and live independently; and
- Carer’s Allowance and Attendance Allowance help reduce poverty in pensioner households, particularly for people over the age of 80.
How we manage our relationship with the Work, Welfare and Equality Group
Work, Welfare and Equality Group incorporates the Disability and Carers Directorate. The role of the Work, Welfare and Equality Group is to help the Department for Work and Pensions ministers deliver their policy objectives for children, people of working age, disabled people and carers.
Disability and Carers Directorate is responsible for the management and direction of Department for Work and Pensions strategy on additional costs of disability and carer benefits. Disability and Carers Service ensures that those benefits are delivered efficiently.
The relationship between Disability and Carers Service and the Disability and Carers Directorate is one of mutual support and shared understanding of the issues facing disabled people and carers.
This business plan sets out how Disability and Carers Service, by way of its strategic objectives, will contribute to Department for Work and Pensions objectives in 2006-07. Our achievements, measured against our plan, will be reported in summer 2007 in the published Disability and Carers Service Annual Report and Accounts.