Atos backlogs worsened by inability to recruit staff due to “widespread loathing of the company by the public.”

Birmingham MP Roger Godsiff has written to the Minister for Work and Pensions to express his concern at the ongoing delays in processing disability benefits, which are being caused at least in part by the incompetence of Atos.

The Hall Green MP commented: “I recently had occasion to contact Atos, to try to find out why a person who applied for ESA reassessment at the beginning of November had heard nothing by the end of June. I was told that Atos had been sitting on her file for more than half a year, before managing to find the time to fill in a form to send to her GP to request further information.

“I was also informed that one of the reasons for the backlog was that the company is understaffed. I asked whether this was due to recruiting problems caused by people not wanting to work for Atos, and I was quite surprised when the response was ‘yes’.”

Roger has therefore written to Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to ask whether his Department was aware that that Atos’ poor reputation is making recruitment difficult, and consequently worsening backlogs in processing benefit applications.

Said Roger: “If DWP is aware of this problem, it seems extremely inappropriate that Atos is being permitted to keep these contracts, when its own incompetence and reputation for being grossly uncaring has made it so difficult for it to recruit staff that the result is devastating delays in processing disability benefits. If the Department was not aware of it, the question then arises of how such a basic problem could have escaped ministers’ attention.

“It beggars belief that DWP are permitting assessments for the most vulnerable people in society to be handled by a company which is — rightly — so publicly loathed that it cannot recruit sufficient staff to carry out its work.”