DWP Business Plan

DWP’s 2012-2015 Business Plan sets out the programme of work we plan to carry out over the next three years to support the Government's objectives. It also contains information on our structure and budget, and the way we measure our performance.

As part of the Government’s transparency drive, all departments are required to publish Business Plans. They set out in unprecedented detail the public sector reforms that the Government is undertaking, helping the public to hold Government to account.

The 2012-2015 Business Plan published on 31 May 2012 is an update of the 2011-2015 Business Plan published in May 2011.

What’s in the Business Plan?

The Business Plan has four sections: coalition priorities, Structural Reform Plan, departmental expenditure and transparency.

The coalition priorities set out the Department’s six main structural reform priorities and its other major areas of responsibility. In brief, the Department’s six structural reform priorities are to:

Deliver welfare reform – Introduce the Universal Credit and other reforms to simplify the welfare system and to ensure that the system always incentivises work and that work always pays. The overall reform package will help to make the welfare system affordable in the longer term
Get Britain working – Implement and manage the Work Programme, an integrated package of personalised support to get people into work – from jobseekers who have been out of work for some time, to those who may have been receiving incapacity benefits for many years
Help tackle the causes of poverty and improve social justice – Develop a welfare system that recognises work as the primary route out of poverty and reduces the number of children in workless households. Develop and implement the Social Justice Strategy and Child Poverty Strategy, focused on improving social justice and on eradicating child poverty by 2020
Pensions reform – Provide decent State Pensions, encourage employers to provide high quality pensions and make automatic enrolment and higher pension saving a reality. Phase out the default retirement age to allow more flexibility around retirement
Enable disabled people to fulfil their potential – Develop and implement a disability strategy to enable disabled people to fulfil their potential. Support more independent living for disabled people who face the greatest barriers by ensuring effective strategic development of evidence-based policies for disability benefits. Support disabled people to take up employment opportunities, by developing specialist disability employment programmes which provide employment support for disabled people facing the greatest barriers
Improve our service to the public – Continue to deliver an excellent service to the public, improving its speed, ease and efficiency.

The Structural Reform Plan sets out in detail the actions that the Department will take to deliver against these priorities. The Government publishes monthly updates on its performance against the Structural Reform Plan.

The Departmental expenditure section sets out how the Department is spending taxpayers’ money clearly and transparently. It includes information showing the Department’s planned expenditure over the Spending Review period, as agreed with the Treasury.

The Transparency section includes a list of input and impact indicators and other key data which can be used to assess performance in the Department’s key priority areas. Users of public services and tax payers can use this information to assess the value and impact of our policies and reforms, in line with the Government’s commitment to greater transparency. Full technical annexes and the latest data for each indicator are on the Departmental Business Plan transparency measures page.

Transparency measures – full technical annexes and the latest data for each indicator

The Business Plan also summarises DWP’s commitment to open data. Our Open Data Strategy will be published in summer 2012.

All departmental business plans and progress reports against these from across government are published on the Number 10 website.

Departmental Business Plans updated 2012 from across Government (Number 10 website)
Structural Reform Plan sections of Business Plans from across Government (Number 10 website)

Annexes to the Business Plan set out cross-government priorities, additional departmental actions which are not considered to be major structural reforms, and completed structural reform actions. The Government will not report systematically on the Number 10 website against the activities listed in these annexes, but overall progress will be reported through other publications such as the Annual Report and Accounts, the Budget and a progress report on sustainable development.