By Tony Collins
The Department for Work and Pensions is keeping secret – as a matter of course – millions of pounds worth of reports it has commissioned on a wide range of IT and other projects including Universal Credit.
A DWP spokesperson, confirming that all the reports (below) are not published, told Campaign4Change that the reports have limited distribution after commitments and assurances were given to their “authors”.
These authors include Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Capgemini, KPMG, Gartner, McKinsey, Atkins, Tribal, Compass and IBM.
In the past, when the DWP has told the Information Commissioner that reports needed to be kept confidential because of commitments to suppliers, the Commissioner has found that the suppliers were content to have the reports published.
A spokesman for the DWP told us: “Consultants’ reports provide additional, often expert, information for the DWP to consider and have a limited distribution following commitments and assurances on disclosure with the authors.”
Lack of accountability
While the reports remain hidden the companies producing them will remain unaccountable for their contents. In our view the excessive and automatic secrecy brings a risk that taxpayers will end up paying millions of pounds for consultancy reports that tell the DWP what it wants to hear.
Would a consultancy be re-hired if its reports were sharply critical of the DWP and its projects?
And is the DWP’s instinctive secrecy appropriate in an era of so-called open government? The reports are not about Britain’s nuclear secrets. In the case of Universal Credit, reports on the progress or otherwise of the programme could be of interest to thousands of people whose benefits will be affected by the scheme.
We believe the DWP should be open by default, but will that ever happen? Epsom MP Chris Grayling is the current DWP minister responsible for the secret reports.
The reports
Below is a list of some of the unpublished consultancy reports produced for the DWP in 2010 and 2011:
| Contract title | Supplier | Value (£) | ||||||
| Resource Management IT Healthcheck | NSG | 90,000 | ||||||
| Jobcentre Plus Financial Information System Capability Review | Capgemini | 25,000 | ||||||
| Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Plan | Atkins | 25,000 | ||||||
| Undertake a Review of Data Centre Migration Approach | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 20,000 | ||||||
| Organisational Design Project | Deloitte | 543,000 | ||||||
| Developing a Business Intelligence Operating Model | Deloitte | 185,672 | ||||||
| CIT Software Project Discovery Phase | Deloitte | 195,528 | ||||||
| Support to CIT Improvement Programmes | Tribal | 760,000 | ||||||
| Information Security Assurance Project | Atkins | 49,950 | ||||||
| Assistance with Resource Management System Improvement Plan Programme Phase 2 | Atkins | 72,690 | ||||||
| Office for Disability Issues TrailBlazer Support—Housing | Sitra | 51,300 | ||||||
| Office for Disability Issues—Trailblazer Resource Allocation for Work Choice | In-Control | 11,750 | ||||||
| Call Off Framework Agreement for Right to Control TrailBlazers | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 97,902 | ||||||
| Commercial Assurance—Automated Delivery Service—Jobseekers Allowance | Atkins | 47,300 | ||||||
| Corporate Services Division Cost Optimisation Programme Network and Telephony | Xantus | 94,370 | ||||||
| National Registration Authority Audit (tScheme Audit) | KPMG | 10,727 | ||||||
| Shingo Prize Pilot | The Manufacturing Institute—TMI Pract. Services | 11,000 | ||||||
| Business Control Strategic Improvements | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 750,000 | ||||||
| A review of DWP Vendor Management Activities | Procurement Excellence | 52,250 | ||||||
| Assistance with Resource Management System Improvement Plan Programme Phase 3 | Atkins | 94,050 | ||||||
| Pension Reform Delivery Programme Closure Activity | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 100,000 | ||||||
| Benchmarking Hosting Services | Gartner | 23,456 | ||||||
| Application Delivery Centre (ADC) Validation Services Requests | Atkins | 97,500 | ||||||
| Additional Modelling Support for Dynamic Benefits | Oliver Wyman | 19,500 | ||||||
| Strategic Financial Consultancy Support to Help deliver Work Programme | KPMG | 362,000 | ||||||
| Shared Services Resource Management Contract (RMOC) Benchmarking | Compass | 15,000 | ||||||
| Final assurance of DWP IT Strategy | Capgemini | 20,000 | ||||||
| Research into the Capacity of the Health Care Professional Market | Deloitte | 48,678 | ||||||
| Commercial support to the Work Programme | Richard Aitken-Davies | 45,000 | ||||||
| Support to DWP Finance and Commercial Function (Organisation Design Review) | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 20,000 | ||||||
| Support to DWP CJT Cost Reduction Programme | Bramble | 1,065,000 |
| DWP Shared Services Delivery Model Options appraisal | Deloitte | 225,000 |
| Benchmarking of DWP Shared Services | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 19,000 |
| Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 2 | McKinsey and Partners | 350,000 |
| Universal Credit Strategic Support | Capgemini | 505,000 |
| Review of Transforming Letters Project | Deloitte | 19,550 |
| Application Delivery Project Independent Market Assessment | Compass | 19,000 |
| Universal Credit End to End Technical Review | IBM | 49,240 |
| Digital Customer Total Experience Design Requirement | Deloitte | 16,667 |
| Universal Credit Supplier Workshop-Facilitation | Xantus | 11,399 |
| Consultancy Support to develop Flexible New Deal Exit Strategy | KPMG | 12,000 |
| Support of CIT Improvement Initiatives | KPMG | 250,000 |
| Risk Assurance Division Strategic Partner | PricewaterhouseCoopers | 1,000,000 |
| Benchmarking of the HPES Hosting Contract | Compass | 172,105 |
| Compensating People with Occupational Mesothelioma | Deloitte | 25,616 |
| Specialist tScheme Annual Audit of DWPs National Registration Authority | KPMG | 33,000 |
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