The Department for Work and Pensions’ most senior official has announced he is stepping down this summer.
In an email to staff, DWP permanent secretary Peter Schofield said this year is a “good time” to leave the department after eight years in the role.
His resignation, which the department said is to “spend more time with his family”, comes a week after a committee of MPs criticised his department for “repeated inadequacy in response to mistakes”.
It comes months after a cabinet reshuffle that saw Pat McFadden installed as work and pensions secretary and handed control over apprenticeships and adult skills policy.
Schofield told staff: “There is never a good moment to step away from a job like this, but having passed my eight-year anniversary, now feels like a good time to pause and reflect on what I want to do next while spending more time with my family.
“There have been many highlights over the years, not least the massive achievement of completing the rollout of Universal Credit for our working age customers.
“That paved the way for our transformation journey – and our continued focus on doing things better for our customers and colleagues – providing support in better and more effective ways.”
Schofield is a civil service fast-streamer, entering the Treasury in the 1990s and moving to the DWP in 2011. He was appointed to lead the department, one of the government’s largest, in 2018.
A DWP spokesperson insisted that the permanent secretary is not stepping down for any reason other than spending time with his family.
They added: “Peter Schofield has served our country for more than three decades, and as DWP’s permanent secretary for eight years. He’s now stepping down to spend more time with his family.
“In that time, he has overseen the transformation of our services, the successful rollout of Universal Credit, and brought colleagues across the country together to overcome the challenges of the pandemic, when our customers needed us most.
“The secretary of state thanks him for this service, and we will continue delivering for the people we serve.”
The cabinet secretary will now begin recruiting the permanent secretary’s replacement ahead of his July leaving date.
In recent weeks, the department has faced criticism of its handling of carers’ allowance benefits failures which saw more than 85,000 people in debt to the department due to overpayments.
Other issues of concern included safeguarding, its mishandling handling of the women’s state pension age changes, its work on reducing fraud and error, and high rates of underpayments of personal independence payments.
A review of the issue found that carers’ allowance overpayments were caused by systemic issues at the department, with multiple opportunities to resolve the problems.
However, the work and pensions committee has said it is still concerned about a “culture of complacency” at the department after a leaked senior official’s internal blog post blamed individual carers for overpayments.
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