Category Archives: DWP

Universal Credit – the ace up Duncan Smith’s sleeve?

Posted on 24/01/2013 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Some people, including those in the know, suspect  Universal Credit will be a failed IT-based project, among them Francis Maude. As Cabinet Office minister Maude is ultimately responsible for the Major Projects Authority which has the job, among other things, of averting major project failures.

But Iain Duncan Smith, the DWP secretary of state, has an ace up his sleeve: the initial go-live of Universal Credit is so limited in scope that claims could be managed by hand, at least in part.

The DWP’s FAQs suggest that Universal Credit will handle, in its first phase due to start in October 2013, only new claims  – and only those from the unemployed.  Under such a light load the system is unlikely to fail, as any particularly complicated claims could managed clerically. 

The second phase of Universal Credit, which is due to begin in April 2014, is the important one, in terms of number of claimants. But this phase may be delayed with a general election approaching, according to Government Computing, which quotes the FT.

This is from the DWP’s website:

“Universal Credit will start to take new claims from unemployed people in October 2013.”

It continues:

“For people in work this process will begin in April 2014. The remainder of current claims will be moved to Universal Credit from 2014, with the process being complete by 2017.”

Comment: 

The projected costs of real-time information, an HMRC project on which the success of Universal Credit depends, have increased by tens of millions from an initial estimate of £108m, according to Ruth Owen, Director General, Personal Tax, HMRC.  At least HMRC is being open about RTI – relative to the DWP which continues to deny FOI requests for the risk register or independent assessments of the progress or otherwise of the Universal Credit IT project.

Auditors at the National Audit Office found that the Rural Payment Agency’s Single Payment Scheme for farmers dealt with so few claims that it could have been handled manually for a fraction of the cost of an IT system that went awry. Perhaps Iain Duncan Smith has learnt from that episode.

As Universal Credit phase one will handle only new claims from the unemployed, there may be no need initially for complicated monthly interactions with HMRC’s Real-time information [PAYE] systems. 

There may be further restrictions on go-live UC candidates. The DWP may insist that unemployed new claimants are single, childless, between certain ages and not receiving certain benefits or tax credits. They may have to have a valid bank account.

So the numbers of claimants and simplified processing will maximise the chances of a go-live success.

This may explain why the Major Projects Authority has not intervened (yet) to delay the October 2013 go-live date.   

It makes sense to minimise complications when going live. But the Passport Agency found that although the go-live of new systems in 1999 went well, extra IT-related security checks slowed down the issuing of passports, such that backlogs built up, people lost their holidays and queues built up at passport offices. It was a project disaster. 

The real test of the agile-based Universal Credit project will be when existing benefit claimants move onto the new systems in large numbers. This will not happen before the next general election. The plan is for the roll-out to be completed by the end of 2017.

Meanwhile does Iain Duncan Smith plan to claim a victory for the go-live of Universal Credit when the initial transactions are so simple, and the numbers involved  so insignificant, they could be managed clerically if necessary?

 As long as Universal Credit does not reduce payments to the genuinely disabled and the most needy, it is generally regarded as a good idea. It should cut fraud and administrative costs. 

It’s a pity though that no central department can be open about the progress of its major  IT-related projects; and on forcing these progress reports out of dark departmental corners the coalition has made no difference at all.

Will GDS delay Universal Credit by a year? – David Moss’s blog

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, DWP, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Government IT, managing change, public services, Real-Time Information, Universal Credit

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A Secretary of State talks about agile

Posted on 19/09/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, told MPs about agile at a hearing of the Work and Pensions Committee this week on Univeral Credit.

He told the Committee:

“The thing about the agile process which I find frustrating at times, because we cannot quite get across to people, is that agile is about change. It is about allowing you to get to a certain point in the process, check it out, make sure it works, come up with something you can  rectify, and make it more efficient.

” So you are constantly rolling forward, proving, and making more efficient.”

He was answering concerns that the IT for Universal Credit may not work. Tomorrow the Department for Work and Pensions starts a publicity campaign on Universal Credit. Part of it will focus on how agile enables the UC project to adapt to change.

Agile does work in government – GDS

Agile will fail in Government IT  – corporate lawyer

Agile can fix failed GovIT says lawyer

PR campaign on Universal Credit starts tomorrow (20 September 2012).

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, DWP

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DWP starts media campaign on Universal Credit IT tomorrow

Posted on 19/09/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has told MPs his department is launching a “major exercise” tomorrow to inform the media about Universal Credit, including progress with the IT project.

The public relations push will include a demonstration to journalists of the Univeral Credit front-end, and an explanation of the ability of “agile” to rectify problems as you go along. Duncan Smith said there is a lot of ignorance in the media, and suppositions, that need tackling head on.

His full statement on the PR campaign is at the foot of this article.

Comment

Iain Duncan Smith’s remarks to MPs sound remarkably like the statements that were made in the early part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS, when DH ministers and senior officials were anxious to correct ignorance and suppositions in the media – and to show journalists the front end of new electronic patient record systems.

Several times journalists were invited to Richmond house in Whitehall, the HQ of the DH, to hear how well the NPfIT was going. So anxious were the minister and leading officials to give a good impression of the programme that, on one occasion, trade journalists who had an insight into the NPfIT’s progress and could ask some awkward questions in front of the general media were barred from attending.

I would like Universal Credit to succeed. In concept it simplifies the excessively complex and costly benefit system. The worrying thing about the scheme, apart from the DWP’s overly sensitive reactions to scepticism in the media, is the way UC seems to be following the path which led to NPfIT’s downfall.

The Secretary of State attacks the media while trying to show UC in a glowing light and at the same time keeps secret all the DWP’s interview reviews and reports on actual progress. Duncan Smith says that the DWP wants to be open on UC but his department is turning down FOI requests.

There is no doubt that Duncan Smith has a conviction that the programme is on course, on budget, and will deliver successfully. But there still a morass of uncertainty for the DWP to contend with, and lessons to be learnt from pilots, some of which could be important enough to require a fundamental re-think. That’s to say nothing of HMRC’s Real-Time Information project which is part of UC.

Duncan Smith says the UC project is not due to be complete until 2017 which gives the DWP ample time to get it right. But ministers and officials in the last administration gave the NPfIT 10 years to complete; and today, nine years later, the scheme is being officially dismantled.

Did NPfIT ministers really know or understand the extent of the project’s true complexities and uncertainties?  Did they fully grasp the limited ability of suppliers to deliver, or the willingness of the NHS to change?  But they were impressed with the patient record front-end system and they organised several Parliamentary events to demonstrate it to MPs.

The NPfIT public relations exercises – which included DH-sponsored DVDs and a board game to market the NPfIT – were all in the end pointless.

Should Duncan Smith be running Universal Credit?

This is another concern. Duncan Smith is much respected and admired in Parliament but he appears too close to UC to be an objective leader. At a hearing of the Work and Pensions this week Duncan Smith took mild criticism of UC as if it were a verbal attack on his child.

It is doubtful anyone working for Duncan Smith would dare give him bad news on UC , though he attends lots of departmental meetings. Doubtless he listens to all those who agree with him, those who are walking press releases on the progress of the UC programme. He’d be a good marketing/PR man on UC. But surely not its leader. Not the one making the most important decisions. For that you would need somebody who’s free from the politics, who is independently minded, and who welcomes informed criticism.

Is there any point in a demo of front-end systems?

Seeing a front-end system means little or nothing. The question is will it work in practice when it is scaled up, when exceptions come to light, and when large numbers of people try to contact the helpdesks because they cannot get to grips with the technology and the interfaces,  or have particular difficulties with their claim.

What will a media campaign achieve?

If the NPfIT experiences are anything to go by, journalists who criticise the UC project will be made to feel stupid or uninformed.

In a totalitarian regime the media could be forced to publish what the government wants people to believe. Will the DWP’s PR campaign be designed to achieve the same end without the slightest attempt at coercion?

Duncan Smith’s comments to MPs

Below is some of what Iain Duncan Smith told Work and Pensions Committee MPs this week. He had been asked by a Committee MP to have a dialogue with the media to ensure that people believe that Universal Credit is a good thing.

Duncan Smith:

“On Thursday we are carrying out a major exercise in informing the median about what we are doing, looking at the system front-end, about budgets and all the elements the committee has been inquiring into.

“We will take them through that, show them that. We are going to open up much more. It is such an important system that I want people to learn what it is all about.  There is a lot of ignorance in the media and suppositions made; things that are important to tackle head on. Everyone says you mustn’t have a big bang; you are not going to be ready in time. The time we deliver this is 2017 when it is complete.  That is over four years…”

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change, change management, culture, DWP, e-health, excessive secrecy, FOI, Government IT, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, Politics, procurement, project management, public sector, public services, Real-Time Information, Universal Credit

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Is Universal Credit really on track? The DWP hides the facts.

Posted on 11/09/2012 | 6 comments

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions has told Campaign4Change that consultancy reports it commissioned on Universal Credit would, if disclosed under FOI, cause “inappropriate concern”.

Who’s to say the concern would be inappropriate?

At the weekend a spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions told the BBC: “Liam Byrne (Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary) is quite simply wrong. Universal Credit is on track and on budget. To suggest anything else is incorrect.”

But the DWP has decided not to disclose reports by consultants IBM and McKinsey that could throw light on whether the department is telling the truth. Though the reports cost taxpayers nearly £400,000, the public has no right to see them.

The DWP told us: “Disclosure [under FOI] would … give the general public an unbalanced understanding of the [Universal Credit] Programme and potentially undermine policy outcomes, cause inappropriate concern (which in turn would need to be managed) and damage progress to the detriment of the Government’s key welfare reform and the wider UK economy.”

Comment

In refusing to publish the costly reports from IBM and McKinsey the Department for Work and Pensions makes the  assumption that the Universal Credit IT programme will be better off without disclosure. But does the  DWP know what is best for the Universal Credit project?  Is the DWP’s own record on project delivery exemplary? Some possible answers:

–  The DWP has a history of big IT project failures, some of which pre-date the “Operational Strategy” project in the 1980s to computerise benefit systems. MPs were told the Operational Strategy, as it was called, would cost about £70om; it cost at least £2.6bn.  Today, decades later, the DWP still has separate benefit systems and relies on “VME” mainframe software that dates back decades.

– NAO reports regularly criticise the DWP’s management of projects, programmes or  suppliers. One of the latest NAO reports on the DWP was about its poor management of a contract with Atos , which does fit-to-work medical assessments.

– The DWP hasn’t broken with tradition on the awarding of megadeals to the same familiar names. Though Universal Credit is said to be based, in part, on agile principles, Accenture and IBM are largely in control of the scheme and the department continues to award big contracts to a small number of large companies. HP, Accenture, IBM and Capgemini are safe in the DWP’s hands.

–  The NAO has qualified the accounts of the DWP for 23 years in a row because of “material” levels of fraud and error.

So is the DWP in an authoritative position to say that the taxpayer and the Universal Credit IT project are better off without disclosure of consultancy reports when the DWP has never done it differently; in other words it has never disclosed its consultancy reports?

Can we trust what DWP says?

Without those reports being put in the public domain can we trust what the DWP says on the success so far of the Universal Credit programme?

Unfortunately departments cannot always be trusted to tell the truth to the media, or Parliament, on the state of major projects.

In 2006 the then health minister Liam Byrne praised the progress of the NHS National Programme for IT, NPfIT. He told the House of Commons that the NPfIT had delivered new systems to thousands of locations in the NHS. “Progress is within budget, ahead of schedule in some areas and, in the context of a 10-year programme, broadly on track in others.”

That was incorrect. But it was what the Department of Health wanted to tell Parliament.

Now it is the DWP that is praising Universal Credit and it is Liam Byrne criticising the programme. This time Byrne may have a point. The problem is we don’t know; the DWP may or may not be telling the truth – even to its Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

It would not be the first time ministers were kept in the dark about the real state of big IT projects: ministers were among the last to know when the Rural Payment Agency’s Single Payment Scheme went awry.

And while the NPfIT was going disastrously wrong, progress on the programme was being praised by ministers who included Caroline Flint, Lord Hunt, Lord Warner, John Reid, Andy Burnham, Ivan Lewis and several others. Even a current minister, Simon Burns, gave Parliament a positive story on the NPfIT while the programme was dying.

So while DWP spokespeople and Iain Duncan Smith praise the Universal Credit IT programme can anyone trust what they say? Though Duncan Smith sits on an important DWP steering group on Universal Credit, does he know enough to know whether he is telling the truth when he says the programme is on track and on budget?

At arm’s length to ministers, officialdom owns and controls the facts on the state of all of the government’s biggest projects – and the facts on Universal Credit’s IT programme will continue to stay in locked cupboards unless the Information Commissioner rules otherwise, and even then the DWP will doubtless put up a fight against disclosure.

The IBM and McKinsey reports were so well hidden by the DWP that, for a time, it didn’t know it had them.

The DWP gave the reasons below for rejecting our appeal against the decision not to publish. The DWP’s arguments against publishing the reports on Universal Credit are the same ones that, hundreds of years ago, were used to ban the publication of Parliamentary proceedings: that reporting would affect the candour of what needed to be said. That proved to be nonsense.

By hiding the reports the DWP gives the impression it doesn’t want the truth about Universal Credit to come out – leaving the department and Iain Duncan Smith free to continue saying that the scheme is on track. Indeed Duncan Smith said yesterday that he “has nothing to hide here”. That is evidently not true.

The reports we’d requested were:

– Universal Credit end-to-end technical review” (IBM – cost £49240).
– Universal Credit delivery model assessment phases one and two. ( McKinsey and Partners – cost £350,000).

DWP’s letter to us:

7 September 2012
Dear Mr Collins,

…You asked for a copy of the Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 1 and 2, and the Universal Credit End to End Technical Review.

I am writing to advise you that the Department has decided not to disclose the information you requested.

The department has conducted an internal review and the information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemptions at section 35(1)(a) and (formulation of Government policy) and Section 36 (2) (b) and (c) (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) of the Freedom of Information Act. These exemptions require the public interest for and against disclosure to be balanced.

These reports from external consultants discuss the merits or drawbacks of the UC delivery model and an assessment of whether the IT architecture is fit for purpose. This must be candid otherwise; the Department and the taxpayer will not secure value for money. Such reports can therefore be negative by nature in their outlook.

The Department considers that premature disclosure of these reports could lead to future consultants’ reports being less frank. In addition, there is a risk that this may lead to an absence of a recorded audit trail of the more candid elements. This is not in the public interest. Similarly, key staff selected to be interviewed by consultants are likely to be inhibited if they think their candour is likely to be recorded and released.

It is vital that the Department’s ability effectively to identify, assess and manage its key risks to delivery is not compromised. The willingness of senior managers to fully engage in a timely manner and support consultants assessment and assurance of key IT projects in an unrestrained, frank and candid way is vital to the effectiveness of the process.

Disclosure would also give the general public an unbalanced understanding of the Programme and potentially undermine policy outcomes, cause inappropriate concern (which in turn would need to be managed) and damage progress to the detriment of the Government’s key welfare reform and the wider UK economy.

While we recognise that the publication of the information requested could provide an independent assessment of the key issues and risks, we have to balance this against the fact that these reports includes details of ongoing policy formulation and sensitive information the publication of which would be likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.

The Department periodically publishes information about the introduction of Universal Credit, and this can be found on the Departments website here http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare-reform/universal-credit/

Yours sincerely
Ethna Harnett

We have appealed the DWP’s refusal so the matter is now before the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Universal  Credit programme on course for disaster – Frank Field

Has the DWP lost £400,000 of reports it commissioned on Universal Credit?

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

NAO criticises Atos benefits contract

DWP scraps £141m IT project three months after assurance to MPs

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change, change management, DWP, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Government IT, HMRC, IBM, IT projects, managing outsourced services, npfit, outsourcing, Universal Credit

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DWP finds hidden Universal Credit reports – after FOI requests

Posted on 21/08/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions has found two reports on Universal Credit reports it commissioned from IBM and McKinsey and did not know existed.

One of the reports was a Universal Credit “end to end technical review” carried out by IBM at a cost of £49,240. Another was a review of the Universal Credit “delivery model assessment phases one and two” carried by McKinsey and Partners at a cost of £350,000.  The assessments were in the first half of 2011.

In March, under the FOI Act, Campaign4Change asked the DWP for a copy of the reports and the Department couldn’t find them.

On 19 July 2012, Julie Kitchin, Senior Business Partner, Operations at the Financial Control Directorate, Risk Management Division, DWP Quarry House, Leeds, said in a letter:

“You asked for a copy of the Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 1 and 2, and the Universal Credit End to End Technical Review.

“To ascertain whether the Department holds these documents I requested a thorough search of the Universal Credit Programme document library.

“Universal Credit Colleagues have confirmed that the Department does not hold documents with these titles or under these names…”

I replied that a mistake appeared to have been made. “The reports I asked for are referred to in this Parliamentary reply, which gives the cost of the reports and the consultants whom the DWP commissioned to produce them. How can the DWP now say they have no record of the reports?” I gave a link to the Parliamentary reply.

Kitchin said she would seek clarification.  Now Martin Dillon of the DWP’s Central FOI Team, says his Department has found the reports. Says Dillon in a letter,

“It has taken time to locate the documents as they are sensitive in nature and held securely and separately from the normal programme library of information – accessible only through a secure authority.

“I can however now confirm that the relevant records have been located and retrieved.”

Comment

So will the DWP now release the Universal Credit reports?

Not a chance.   The DWP does not publish any consultancy reports, especially external assessments of Universal Credit. Indeed it appears to be so innately, instinctively and culturally secretive that it hides from its own staff independent  assessments of its projects.

Could it be that the DWP is in part PR-driven, to the extent that it commissions tens of millions of pounds worth of external reviews of projects, which ministers and officials can quote from selectively in case a project such as Universal Credit is criticised in Parliament, but which remain hidden so that anything negative is always kept from public and Parliamentary scrutiny?

In defence of the DH’s decision to pay generous sums to BT for Rio and Cerner deployments under the NPfIT, the department quoted selectively from a series of consultancy reports which it refused to publish.

Officially the DWP has not made up its mind on whether to publish the Universal credit reports. In private its officials know there is no way it will publish them.

This is the official DWP response to Campaign4Change on the reports requested under FOI:

“It is occasionally necessary to extend the time limit for issuing a response. In the case of your request, we need to extend the time limit because the information requested must be considered under one of the exemptions to which the public interest test applies.

“This extra time is needed in order to make a determination as to the public interest. Accordingly, we hope to let you have a response by 13 September.”

Universal Credit is one of the government’s biggest IT-related projects. Ministers say that all is going well. But what if the plans are to go live with a tiny proportion of claimants in October next year, with most of the remainder to follow after the next general election, if at all? Is that a PR success or a postponed disaster? It’s certainly a good reason to keep independent assessments of the project secret.

“If people don’t know what you’re doing, they don’t know what you’re doing wrong.” – Yes Minister.

Has DWP lost £400,000 worth of Universal Credit studies it commissioned?

DWP hides already published report on Universal Credit

Millions of secret DWP reports.

Time for truth on Universal Credit IT

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Posted in DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, governance, Government IT, openness and transparency

Ex Government CIO Joe Harley rejoins private sector

Posted on 13/08/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Former Government CIO Joe Harley has taken a position as non-executive adviser to Amor Group, an IT and business technology provider to the transport, energy and public sectors.

Amor says is taking the place of large systems integrators whose “monopolies are ending”.

It is Harley’s first official role since retiring from the civil service earlier this year.

Amor Group says it has “succeeded in recruiting the man credited with reforming the UK Government’s information communication and technology strategy to act as a strategic adviser”.

Harley was UK Government CIO between 2011 and 2012 and CIO at the Department of Work and Pensions from 2004 to 2012.

Amor has a turnover of about £45m and nearly 600 staff at offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Manchester, Coventry, London, Dubai and Houston.

Harley said,

“Amor Group is a new breed of companies that is helping organisations to improve their business performance and to manage their ICT budgets to deliver maximum value in the current economic climate and I am delighted to be helping a company which has grown year on year in a tough market, and that has such great ambitions for growth.

“Businesses are looking to more agile, flexible firms who can act quickly and save costs whilst not lowering service levels. I am looking forward to helping Amor continue that trend.”

John Innes, CEO at Amor, said,  “The days of the large systems integrators and monopolies are ending and we are taking their place. We signed a £18.5m contract last year with the Scottish Government to run its eProcurement service and we’ve seen real traction in International markets with our passenger tracking technology being installed at Dubai Airport and a number of wins for our Energy team in the US.

“What sets us apart is our culture as a company. We understand that technology only has a value when it delivers benefits to an organisation and we focus on delivering those benefits rather than selling heavyweight solutions.”

Harley’s background:

1993 – 1996: BP Alaska, IT director
1996 – 1998: BP Exploration and Downstream Europe, CIO
1998 – 2000: BP, global IT vice president
2000 – 2004: ICI Paints, CIO
2004 – 2012 Director General of Corporate IT and CIO, Department for Work and Pensions. Government CIO from 2011-2012.
Harley led the Universal Credit IT scheme which is due to go live from next October.

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Posted in CIO, DWP, public sector, public services, Real-Time Information, Universal Credit

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Has DWP lost £400,000 worth of Universal Credit studies it commissioned?

Posted on 24/07/2012 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

On 12 March 2012, Chris Grayling, a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, published a list of the DWP’s consultancy contracts.

Soon afterwards the question was asked: has the DWP published any of the consultants’ reports – nearly 50 of them commissioned from companies that included PricewaterCoopers, Atkins, Capgemini, IBM, Compass,  KPMG, Deloitte, Xantus, Gartner and Tribal?

No, said the DWP.

So I made an FOI request for two of the reports, on Universal Credit:

– Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 1 and 2, and

– the Universal Credit End to End Technical Review.

The DWP could not find them. It didn’t even have a record of them.

Julie Kitchin, Senior Business Partner Operations at the DWP’s Financial Control Directorate, Risk Management Division at Leeds, said she requested a “thorough search of the Universal Credit Programme document library”.

And …

“Universal Credit Colleagues have confirmed that the Department does not hold documents with these titles or under these names.”

But Chris Grayling, a DWP minister, told the House of Commons that the reports exist. His written answer on 12 March 2012 referred to:

Universal Credit End to End Technical Review IBM £49,240
Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 2 McKinsey and Partners £350,000

Julie Kitchin said she would check again and reply within 20 working days. “In the light of the additional information you have provided, I have asked the Universal Credit Programme to conduct a further search for the reports you have highlighted. ”

Comment:

Since the FOI Act came into force on 1 January 2005, the DWP has at no point granted any of my FOI requests or appeals. Its replies could be modelled on electronic birthday cards that play the same automated message every time you open them.

Perhaps the DWP could be the first department to use software to generate FOI replies without human involvement.

DWP hides already published Universal Credit report.

Chris Grayling’s written answer on DWP’s consultancy contracts

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

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Posted in Campaign4Change, consultants, Deloitte, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Government IT, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

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NAO hopes Universal Credit will cut fraud and error

Posted on 12/07/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Amyas Morse, the head of the National Audit Office, has again qualified the accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions because of the high level of fraud and error in benefit spending.

The DWP’s accounts have been qualified every year since 1988-89. Morse hopes that Universal Credit will make a positive difference. In a report published today he says that new procedures and systems to verify identity and check entitlement  before payments are made, should mark an opportunity to eliminate some  of the key factors contributing to fraud and error.

But Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said today the introduction of Universal Credit is full of risks which are compounded by the DWP’s secrecy over the scheme’s progress.

She said:

“The Department has the biggest budget in Whitehall and its inability, 24 years in a row, to administer its spending properly is just unacceptable.

“With fraud and error of £4.5bn in 2011-12, roughly the same as in previous years, huge sums of money are being lost to the public purse that could have been spent on our schools and hospitals. Government spending is at its tightest for over 50 years and it simply can’t afford to carry on like this.

“The Department is relying on the introduction of Universal Credit to get its house in order but the transition to Universal Credit is full of risks and the Department won’t even tell us if it is on schedule.

“The Department has got to get a grip on fraud and error now. Despite its assurances to my Committee, it has not done so and it must do better.”

 Complex benefit system

Morse says it is difficult for the DWP to administer a complex benefits system to a high degree of accuracy in a cost effective way.

“Some benefits, mainly those with means-tested entitlement, are more inherently susceptible to fraud and error due to their complexity, the difficulties in obtaining reliable information to support the claim and the problem of capturing changes in a customer’s circumstances.”

Claimants have to notify the DWP of changes in their personal circumstances.  “The Department has adopted this approach because it does not have routine access to verifiable third party sources of information, or the information may not exist that would allow them to track such changes…

” The complex administration of benefits also allows potential fraudsters the opportunity to present themselves differently to different administering agencies, which are not always sufficiently integrated to identify those instances.

“Because the Department does not have a readily available source of external information against which to verify some aspects of claims, such misrepresentations can result in fraud occurring.”

Errors commonly arise from poor or non-timely exchange of information between the Department and councils over whether a customer is in receipt of, or entitled to, a benefit.

“In practice, given the lack of direct integration between the Department’s systems and those of all local authorities, such errors will be difficult to eliminate.”

That said, the DWP has continued implementing Automated Transfers to Local Authority Systems (ATLAS), an IT development that automatically informs local authorities of new awards or changes in benefits.

From February 2012 councils have received details of changes in benefits administered by the DWP on a daily basis.

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, DWP, efficiency savings, Universal Credit

MyCSP becomes first public sector mutual spin-out

Posted on 30/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

An article on the Daily Telegraph website suggests that this week will see the creation of the government’s first public sector mutual spin-out. 

MyCSP will be spun out from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and “transformed into an independent mutual that will give staff an unprecedented say in how the business is run and the chance to share in the new company’s profits.”

A 25% stake in MyCSP will be divided between the agency’s 500 staff, with a 40% sold off to a major player in the financial services industry. The company will try to win new business from the public and private sectors.

The Telegraph reports that ministers believe mutualisation will halve MyCSP’s administration costs. Although staff will become members of the private sector, they will retain their public sector pensions.

MyCSP has signed a 10-year contract to administer the civil service pension scheme, which has around 1.5 million members. At the end of this contract, the new mutual will have to compete against other private sector pension adminstators to run the scheme.

Lord Hutton of Furness, a former Labour minister, will be the chairman of the MyCSP. He said he hoped this was the “first of many” mutuals to be spun out of the public sector.

“Creating mutuals are a very exciting way for people on the front line of the public sector to take ownership and responsibility for the services they provide,” said Lord Hutton.

“They get a voice on the board and a share of any profits. I hope this model will lead to better performance and better value for the taxpayer.”

He argued that the old model of public sector monopolies were “not fit for the 21st century”, and added that the greater squeeze on taxpayers’ money ensured that poor performance in the public sector could “no longer be tolerated”.

“There is no such thing as a status quo in the public sector worth defending – we must have a relentless pursuit of excellence,” he said.

“I am a very strong supporter of what this Government is trying to do with public service reform particularly with a view to mutualisation.”

MyCSP’s private sector partner will be the Equiniti Group’s Paymaster business, which will hold a 40 per cent stake, with the government holding 35 per cent and the employees 25 per cent under a model based on the much-quoted John Lewis model of mutual ownership , which rewards employees with profit-related bonus schemes.

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Is DWP stance on Universal Credit reports mocking FOI?

Posted on 27/04/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions, which has remained as secretive over the progress or otherwise of its IT-based projects as before the 2005 Freedom of Information Act, has, as expected, rejected our FOI request for reports on the state of the Universal Credit project.

We have appealed and the DWP has, as is customary, delayed its response. It appears that the Department works on the principle that the longer it delays FOI responses the more out of date will be its reports when the Information Commissioner eventually rules they must be published.

In its reply to us, the DWP gave reasons for hiding a report it has already put in the public domain: a “Starting Gate Review” of Universal Credit.

Hiding reports under its jumper

The review was carried out in February 2011. That the DWP is keeping under its jumper a public report suggests that its responses to the FOI Act owe more to instinct than proper consideration.

The DWP also refused to publish, under the FOI Act, a Universal Credit “Project Assessment Review in November 2011” by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority.

These are the reasons Ethna Harnett, Universal Credit Division, DWP,  gave for refusing our FOI request for Universal Credit project progress reports:

– “Further reviews, by the Major Project Authority and by the National Audit Office are planned.”

– “Elements of the information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemption in Section 36 (2) (b) and (c) of the Freedom of Information Act. This exemption requires the public interest for and against disclosure to be balanced.”

– “The information you have requested includes details of a sensitive nature whose publication would prejudice effective conduct of public affairs. There is a strong public interest in the Department maintaining an efficient and effective risk management and assurance process and in ensuring that this process is not undermined by premature disclosure particularly where risks are not yet fully mitigated.”

– “There is also a strong public interest in the Department being able to carry out and use frank assessments, including unrestrained and candid contributions from business areas. ”

– “The assurance reports produced by the Major Project Authority are not shared beyond the Senior Responsible Owner and interested parties within Government.”

– “DWP Ministers have, however, committed to update Parliament on the Universal Credit programme through written ministerial statements. These statements are available on the Parliamentary website – www.parliament.uk.”

– “The Major Projects Authority will publish information on the progress of the Government’s high-risk and high-value projects, referred to collectively as the government major projects portfolio, alongside the first annual report at the end of this financial year.”

Comment:

The DWP has never met any of our FOI requests and has, in every case, delayed its responses to our requests for internal appeals. The result of the appeals is always the same – the upholding of the original decision. We are in awe of the DWP’s ability to detach its IT operations from the FOI Act.

The DWP considers it is acting in the public interest: that assessments of its IT-based projects such as Universal Credit would not be candid if they were put in the public domain.

But if the DWP had got this right and that its assurance reports would be less effective if published, we’d expect to see successes with major DWP IT-based projects. We don’t see the evidence.

Indeed the signs are that Universal Credit, the DWP’s biggest project, is in trouble; and after 20 years the Department is still having trouble combining its various benefit systems.

The National Audit Office has qualified the DWP’s accounts every year for the last 23 years, largely because of the level of official error and fraud.

Is this a department that is getting IT right?  There is no evidence it is; and some evidence suggests it isn’t.

The DWP needs to change. It needs to see openness as an opportunity not a threat. Openness would show that officials are prepared to be measured publicly against the findings of their assessment reports. That needs self-confidence.

On the other hand secrecy permits an uneasy introspection, allows weaknesses to take hold, and gives officials comfort in not changing.

Somerset Maugham put it well in his excellent book Of human Bondage. He said: “Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.”

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change, culture, DWP, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Government IT, HMRC, Major Projects Authority, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

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