Category Archives: Universal Credit

IDS confirms that UC “full” business case not approved

Posted on 09/07/2014 | Leave a comment

Tony Collins

For the first time Iain Duncan Smith has made the distinction between the full business for Universal Credit, which has not been approved, and the strategic outline business case which has been approved.

The truth emerged after a question in the House of Commons this afternoon by Chris Bryant, shadow minister for welfare reform.

On previous occasions when ministers had been asked whether the business case for UC had been approved they replied that the strategic outline business case had been approved. They omitted to say that the full business case, which assures long-term finance for the programme, has not yet been approved.

Now IDS has confirmed to Bryant that approval of the full business case for UC is due “very shortly”. Bryant had asked IDS whether the business case had been approved – yes or no? IDS gave a lengthy reply before answering the question.  He said:

“The Treasury have approved the funding for Universal Credit in 2013, 2014, and 2015 [though not beyond that] in line with the plan I announced in December last year… the final stage in this process, and the logical point is now, has always been to approve and sign off the full business case covering the full, long lifetime of this programme going on beyond this Parliament.

“We are in discussions over that and will eventually bring the £35bn economic benefits to society … and my right honourable friend (in the Treasury) I am certain will approve that very soon.”

Approval of the full business case is far from guaranteed. Withholding consent gives the Cabinet Office, Major Projects Authority and the Treasury a continued say over how the UC programme develops.

Once approval of the full business is given, the centre of government will have less influence over the programme.

Opposition MPs also asked IDS this afternoon whether he would publish the UC business case. He said that no government has previously published business cases but he would consider the matter and discuss it with MPs.

The DWP has not published any of its internal or commissioned UC reports.

Thank you to openness campaigner Dave Orr who drew my attention to the UC debate in the House of Commons today.

Minister did not lie over UC business case – but did officials deliberately mislead?

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

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Minister didn’t lie over UC business case – but did officials deliberately mislead?

Posted on 09/07/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Comment

DWP minister Esther McVey is facing criticism that she misled Parliament by saying that the Universal Credit business case had been approved when it hadn’t.

A close look at the facts shows that the minister spoke the truth, and the DWP officials who wrote her Parliamentary answer also told the truth. But MPs were still misled, perhaps deliberately so.

The officials who wrote the minister’s reply knew that there is an early and very basic business case for Universal Credit,  the strategic outline business case, which had been approved.

All big projects in central government have strategic outline business case approval before they get underway. Universal Credit was the same as any other big programme in this respect.

What hadn’t been approved was the full business case which requires much more detail than the strategic outline case – and it requires plans and costs to be finalised among other things.

When, on 30 June 2014,  Rachel Reeves, Labour’s spokeswoman on work and pensions, asked the government whether the business case for Universal Credit had been approved officials wrote a cleverly deceptive answer.

They wrote that the strategic outline business case had been approved. They did not mention that the full business case had not been approved. It’s certain that the minister did not realise that this answer was deceitful.

That said, the  answer was in line with the DWP’s culture which is to project good news and conceal bad news (NAO report Universal Credit: early progress, September 2013).

This was the original Parliamentary question and answer on 30 June 2014.

Rachel Reeves (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions; Leeds West, Labour)  

“To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions … whether he has approved the Department for Work and Pensions’ business case for the implementation of universal credit.”

Esther McVey (The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions; Wirral West, Conservative)

“The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has approved the UC Strategic Outline Business Case plans for the remainder of this Parliament (2014-15) as per the ministerial announcement.”

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the DWP, in drafting the minister’s reply to Reeves, intended to mislead.

That’s politics. On the other hand it is an extraordinary misuse of power by senior civil servants.

A strategic outline business case is very different to a full business case.

The strategic outline case merely sets out the strategic context and the case for change, together with the supporting investment objectives for the scheme. It sets out likely funding needs and speculates that the scheme is achievable and meets best practice principles.

The full business case has finalised arrangements including key contractual arrangements , costs,  agreed implementation timescales, main risks, constraints, dependencies, benefits and “dis-benefits”. It sets out an argument on the affordability of the scheme.

The controversy over whether Parliament was misled – which it was – shows the ease with which the senior civil service can protect the government of the day from embarrassment. Except that this time the truth came out; and it came out unexpectedly because a tenacious Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, kept asking civil servants whether the business case for UC had been approved. Eventually, though with some reluctance, they told her the truth.

If a little truth comes out in such an unplanned way, one can only guess at how much other information on the Universal Credit programme is being hidden. Perhaps deliberately so.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, IT-related failures, managing change, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

Treasury refusing to sign off Universal Credit business case?

Posted on 08/07/2014 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Government Computing reports that the business case for the Universal Credit programme has yet to be signed off.

It appears that the Department for Work and Pensions receives money for the programme only when it needs it.

It is odd that the business case remains to be signed although the programme is more than three years old. The programme was “reset” last year.

At a hearing yesterday of the Public Accounts Committee the four top civil servants who appeared before MPs were reluctant to admit that the business case had not been signed off.

They four were:

– Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary, Cabinet Office;

– Sir Bob Kerslake, Head of the Home Civil Service and Permanent Secretary, Communities and Local Government;

– Richard Heaton, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office and

– Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury.

Government Computing reports that the four were “reduced to bluster” when the committee’s chair Margaret Hodge  questioned them repeatedly on whether the business case for Universal Credit had been signed off by the Treasury.

She said, “There is no argument about the policy. It is entirely an implementation issue. And I cannot understand a centre that fails to intervene when there is such a classic failure at the departmental level on something that the centre says it is interested in, which is IT.

“It’s supposed to be a digitisation exercise in the way we administer benefits so you can integrate the benefits. What we’ve got out there is not a digitisation – it’s an incredibly staff intensive, pathfinder thing. Why is the centre allowing that to happen? Have you signed off the business case yet?”

“Have you assigned off the business case?” she repeated to  MacPherson.

After some looks between the four permanent secretaries, Kerslake said, “I think we should stop beating about the bush. It hasn’t been signed off. What we’ve had is a set of conditional assurances about progress and the Treasury has released money accordingly. And that’s one of the key controls they have. “

Defending the role of the centre in the Universal Credit programme, Heywood said, “This is an example of where the centre did intervene very strongly, both the Treasury and the Major Projects Authority (MPA).

“The MPA with the support of the Treasury and with a lot of technical help from the Government Digital Service (GDS) has played a very clear role in bringing to the secretary of state’s attention that the project was way off track. And that was a very important intervention from the centre.

“It then followed up with the next technique that the centre has got, which is to provide support in seconding in the then head of the MPA, David Pitchford, to help re-programme the project, a lot of support from Mike Bracken and his team at GDS to help the digital underpinnings of it and also some help on the commercial renegotiation of some of the contracts from Bill Crothers and his team. So it’s a very good example of the assurance role was followed by a support role and that continues.”

Pressed by Margaret Hodge on whether Universal Credit was now on track, Heywood said, “In its current form, yes, I think it is.”

Comment

Among so-called enlightened democracies the UK, perhaps, stands alone. In what other country would the nation’s four most senior civil servants, when asked if the business case for a major project has been signed off, look like children in a playground who are being asked to reveal a secret?

What does it say about open government that the UK’s four most senior civil servants cannot immediately say yes or no to such a basic question?

[One thing it says, perhaps, is that they are all terrified of Iain Duncan Smith who doesn’t like anything being said about Universal Credit that isn’t entirely positive. Worse still, they probably all agree with him.]

Treasury still to fully sign off Universal Credit business case 

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, DWP, excessive secrecy, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, Universal Credit

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DWP still spending “significant sums” on Universal Credit scheme, say auditors

Posted on 26/06/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The National Audit Office has again qualified the annual accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO,  says the level of fraud and error at the DWP remains “unacceptably high”. His office published the DWP’s annual report and accounts today.

“The Department’s accounts, and those of predecessor Departments administering this expenditure, have received similar qualified audit opinions since 1988-89.

“Issuing an audit qualification is a serious matter, and the fact that similar qualifications have been in place for such a long period of time does not lessen that seriousness.

“I consider that the overall value of fraud and error in benefit expenditure remains unacceptably high, and the qualification of my audit opinion reflects that.”

On Universal Credit Morse says that the DWP  acknowledges that actions to improve programme management, through the existing IT functionality and the development of the digital end-state solution, and to support new governance arrangements, are on-going and their operational effectiveness is still to be proven.

“It is clear that the Department still has much to do to address all the concerns raised and to ensure it delivers value for money in its implementation of the Universal Credit programme.

“The Department is continuing to spend significant sums in developing the programme, as it both maintains and enhances the existing IT functionality, while simultaneously designing a new digital end-state to replace it.

“The Department will need to exert rigorous control over this expenditure, and ensure it uses the available funding effectively and does not need to impair further assets.” The DWP had written off about £40m on the Universal Credit programme by the time of the NAO’s September 2013 report.

The NAO will publish a new report on the Universal Credit programme before the end of 2014, says Morse.

 NAO plans new report on Universal Credit programme before the 2015 election

Upper Tribunal refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports

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Posted in Campaign4Change, National Audit Office, Universal Credit

Upper Tribunal refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports

Posted on 26/06/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

An upper tribunal judge this week refused consent for the Department of Work and Pensions to appeal a ruling that four reports on the Universal Credit programme be published.

It’s the third successive legal ruling to have gone against the DWP as its lawyers try to stop the reports being released.

The DWP is likely to request further consideration of its appeal. History suggests it will devote the necessary legal time and funding to stop the reports being published.

In March 2014, the first-tier information tribunal rejected the DWP’s claim that disclosure of the four reports would inhibit the candour and boldness of civil servants who contributed to them – the so-called chilling effect.

The DWP sought the first-tier tribunal’s leave to appeal the ruling, describing it as “perverse”. External lawyers for the DWP said the tribunal had wholly misunderstood what is meant by a “chilling effect”, how it is manifested and how its existence can be proved.

They claimed the misunderstanding and the perverse decision were “errors of law”. For the first-tier tribunal’s finding to go to appeal to the “upper tribunal”, the DWP would have needed to prove “errors in law” in the findings of the first-tier tribunal.

The judge in that case, David Farrer QC, found that there were no errors in law in his ruling and he refused the DWP leave to appeal. The DWP then asked the upper tribunal to overrule Farrer’s decision – and now the DWP has lost again.

The upper tribunal’s judge Nicholas Wikeley says in his ruling this week:

“This [chilling effect] is a well known concept, and I can see no support for the argument that the [first-tier] Tribunal misunderstood its meaning.

“The Tribunal was surely saying that whilst it heard Ms Cox’s claim that disclosure would have a chilling effect, neither she nor the Department provided any persuasive evidence to that effect.” [Sarah Cox is a senior DWP executive on the Universal Credit programme.]

“Indeed, the Tribunal noted, as it was entitled to, that Ms Cox did not suggest that frank discussion had been inhibited in any way by a third party’s revelation of the ‘Starting Gate Review’.”

In conclusion the judge says:

“I therefore refuse permission [for the DWP] to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.”

The DWP’s lawyers asked the upper tribunal for a stay, or suspension, of the first-tier tribunal’s ruling that the four reports be published. This the judge granted temporarily.  The lawyers also asked for a private hearing, which the judge did not decide on.

DWP too secretive?

John Slater, who has 25 years experience working in IT and programme and project management, requested three of the four reports in question under the FOI Act in 2012. He asked for the UC issues register, high-level milestone schedule and risk register. Also in 2012 I requested a UC project assessment review by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority.

The Information Commissioner ruled that the DWP should publish three of the reports but not the Risks Register.  In March 2014 the first-tier information tribunal ruled that all four reports should be published.

Excluding these four, the DWP has had 19 separate reports on the progress or otherwise of the Universal Credit programme and has not published any of them.

Work and Pensions minister Lord Freud, told the House of Lords, in a debate on Universal Credit this week:

“I hope we are as transparent as we can be.”

What happens now?

Slater says that as the DWP has been refused permission to appeal it will probably ask for an oral hearing before the upper tribunal. This would mean that the DWP would get a second chance to gets its point across directly in front of the Upper Tribunal rather than just on paper, as it has just tried, says Slater. There is no guarantee that the DWP would be granted an oral hearing.

Comment

If all was going well with the DWP’s largest projects its lawyers could argue, with some credibility, that the “safe space” civil servants need to produce reports on the progress or otherwise of major schemes is having a useful effect.

In fact the DWP has, with a small number of notable exceptions such as Pension Credit, presided over a series of major IT-based projects that have failed to meet expectations or business objectives, from  “Camelot” in the 1980s to “Operational Strategy” in the 1990s. Universal Credit is arguably the latest project disaster, to judge from the National Audit Office’s 2013 report on the scheme.

The”safe space” the DWP covets doesn’t  appear to work.  Perhaps it’s a lack of firm challenge, external scrutiny and transparency that are having a chilling effect on the department.

Upper Tribunal ruling Universal Credit appeal

My submission to FOI tribunal on universal credit

Judge [first-tier tribunal] refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports – April 2014

 

 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing change, Universal Credit

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Labour promises new NAO inquiry into Universal Credit project if elected

Posted on 23/06/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

“All our [Universal Credit] IT at the moment is working and it’s working well, which is why we’ve taken the decision to roll it out to the whole of the North West,” said Iain Duncan Smith on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics programme at the weekend.

But IDS is not publishing any of the Department for Work and Pensions’ reports on Universal Credit  IT, such as the project assessment reviews, risk registers or issues registers, so it’s difficult to verify independently his assurances that the IT is working well.

Labour, meanwhile, has promised, if it wins the 2015 election,  a new National Audit Office inquiry into Universal Credit.

In an interview with BBC One’s Sunday Politics programme, shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves said:

“We set up a universal credit rescue committee in the autumn of last year because we had seen, from the National Audit Office [and] from the Public Accounts Committee, report after report showing that this project is …not going to be delivered according to the government timetable.

“We believe in the principle of universal credit, we think it is the right thing to do.”

Reeves criticised ministers for not being open about what had gone wrong with the project. “There is no transparency,” she said. “It’s going to cost £12.8bn to deliver and we don’t know what sort of state it is in.

“So we have said that if we win the next election we will pause… the build of the system for three months, calling in the National Audit Office to do a warts-and-all report on it.”

She said the “pause” would not involve halting the pilot schemes that were already in place. She urged coalition ministers to follow her prescription immediately.

“The government doesn’t need to wait for the next election,” she said. “They could do this today: call in the National Audit Office … and finally get a grip on this incredibly important programme.”

The Department for Work and Pensions has announced the roll-out of UC to all job centres in the north west by the end of this year but the IT will handle only the simplest of cases and some of these involve clerical intervention.

Integration with back-office systems is handled manually, and claims from couples or those with dependents are still not allowed.

The DWP said last month that the IT would be handle claims from couples starting this summer but this now seems unlikely.

UC claimants for the time being must be single, without children, newly claiming a benefit, fit for work, not claiming disability benefits, not have caring responsibilities, not be homeless or in temporary accommodation, and have a valid bank account and National Insurance number.

The National Audit Office in a report on UC last September questioned whether the IT will work for the millions of people whose claims are complicated.

Comment

Labour’s promise of an NAO investigation if it wins power – and its suggestion that the NAO publish an update to its September 2013 report on UC before the next election – are welcome.

Probably the last thing IDS wants at the moment is an up-to-date report by the NAO on Universal Credit. At present IDS and the Department for Work and Pensions can say without fear of authoritative contradiction that the IT is working well.  An NAO update would show whether that assurance is optimistic.

Labour if it wins the election cannot force the NAO to investigate the UC project. No political party instruct the NAO to investigate anything.  The NAO is independent of government and decides what to investigate, often in conjunction with the cross-party Public Accounts Committee.

It’s likely, however, that the NAO would agree to publish a new report on the UC project if Labour wins the next election.

Whoever wins the NAO will publish a new report on UC – it is already monitoring the programme – but is likely to do so sooner if Labour wins.

IDS could still win much credibility for the DWP and himself by deciding to publish the UC project assessment reviews, risk registers, issues registers and high-level milestone schedules.

Universal Credit creeps into north west 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, IT projects, IT-related failures, Universal Credit

Has DWP suppressed a “red” rating on Universal Credit project?

Posted on 28/05/2014 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office’s Major Project Authority gave the Universal Credit programme a “red” rating which IDS and the Department for Work and Pensions campaigned successfully to turn into a neutral “reset” designation, says The Independent.

Universal Credit was “only given a reset rating after furious protests by Iain Duncan Smith and his department,” says the newspaper.

A “reset” rating is unprecedented. All major projects at red will need a reset. That is one of the reasons the Major Projects Authority gives a red rating: to signal to the senior responsible owner that the project needs resetting or cancelling. A “reset” designation is a non-assessment.

The MPA’s official definition of a red rating is:

“Red: Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues on project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

The suppression of Universal Credit’s red rating may indicate that the project, at the top, is driven by politics – the public and Parliamentary perception of the project being all-important – rather than pragmatics.

It is a project management aphorism that serious problems cannot be tackled until their seriousness is admitted.

Normally the Major Projects Authority will give even newly reconfigured projects traffic light ratings, to indicate its view of the risks of the revised plans.

The Independent calls for the replacement of Iain Duncan Smith as political head of the project.

Comment

The National Audit Office warned last September of the DWP’s fortress mentality and “good news” culture.

The suppression of Universal Credit’s red rating on top of the DWP’s repeated refusals to publish the Universal Credit project assessment report, risk register, issues register and milestone schedule shows that the DWP still avoids telling it like it is. That will make successful delivery of Universal Credit’s complexities impossible.

Well-run IT projects are about problem-solving not problem-denying.

The Independent is right to say that IDS is not the person to be running Universal Credit. He has too much emotional equity to be an objective leader. He sees himself as having too much to lose. The programme needs to be run by an open-minded pragmatist.

In asking the Cabinet Office to agree with a “reset” rating for Universal Credit IDS is acting like a schoolboy who has done something wrong and asks the school not to tell his parents. That’s no way to run something as important as Universal Credit.

IDS and DWP accused of hiding bad news on Universal Credit – The Independent

 

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing change, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

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DWP – and Cabinet Office – hide new Universal Credit secrets

Posted on 23/05/2014 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

In 2009 Francis Maude promised, if the Conservatives came to power,  that his party would publish “Gateway” reviews on the progress or otherwise or big IT-based projects.

He was surprised when I told him that civil servants wouldn’t allow it, that they wouldn’t want Parliament and the media knowing how badly their big programmes were being managed. Maude said he couldn’t see a problem in publishing the reports.

When Maude and the Conservatives won power, the Cabinet Office promised in its forward plans to publish Gateway reviews but it never happened.

The Cabinet Office told me its forward plans were “draft” (although they were not marked “draft”) and the commitment to publishing Gateway reviews was no longer included. It didn’t say why.

Still Maude worked privately within government to persuade departmental ministers to at least publish the “traffic light” status of major projects – red, amber or green. Eventually this happened – sort of.

Senior civil servants and their ministers agreed to publish the traffic light status of major projects only if the disclosures were at least six months old by the time they were published.

Maude agreed – and last year the Major Projects Authority published its delayed 2013 annual report. It revealed the out-of-date traffic light status of big projects.

Today the 2014 Major Projects Authority annual report is published. Alongside publication, departments are publishing the traffic light status of major projects – except the Universal Credit programme.

Where the DWP should be publishing the red, amber or green designation of the UC programme the spreadsheet says “reset”.

Therefore the DWP is avoiding not only the publication of Universal Credit reports as part of a 2-year FOI legal battle, it has stopped publishing the traffic light status of the Universal Credit programme.

Secrecy over the state of the UC programme is deepening, which could be said to make a mockery of the Cabinet Office’s attempts to bring about open government.

It seems that the DWP is happy for MPs, journalists and the public to speculate on the state of the Universal Credit programme. But it is determined to deny its critics authoritative information on the state of the programme.

Universal Credit is looking to me rather like a programme disaster of the type seen during Labour’s administration. And the detail is being kept hidden – as it was under Labour.

The DWP argues that UC reports cannot be published because of the “chilling effect” on civil servants who contribute to the reports. In other words they will not be candid in their assessments if they know their comments will be published.

What’s remarkable about this claim is the assumption that the status quo works. The DWP assumes that publication of the UC reports – even if there is a demonstrable chilling effect – will have a bad effect on the UC programme. But how could things be worse than they are? The National Audit Office report “Universal Credit – early progress” showed that the programme was being poorly managed.

The absence of a chilling effect has not served the UC programme well. Will the non-publication of a traffic light status for UC serve the programme well?

It may be that more rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny – by well informed MPs – is essential for the UC programme’s welfare.

But for that to happen IDS and the DWP’s ministers and senior civil servants will need to be dragged kicking and screaming towards the door marked “open government”. Will it ever happen? I doubt it.

PS: It appears that the Cabinet Office and its Major Projects Authority have agreed with departments that the MPA’s Annual Report will be published today – a Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend . Is this to reduce the chances it will be noticed by the trade press and national media?  

Update:

Shortly after publishing the blog post above a DWP press officer gave me the following statement:

“Universal Credit is on track. The reset is not new but refers to the shift in the delivery plan and change in management back in early 2013.

“The reality is that Universal Credit is already making work pay as we roll it out in a careful and controlled way.

“It’s already operating in 10 areas and will start expanding to the rest of the North West in June. Jobseekers in other areas are already benefiting from some of its positive impacts through help from a work coach, more digital facilities in jobcentres, and a written agreement setting out what they will do to find work.”

The DWP says the “reset” rating reflects the fact that the Secretary of State decided to reset the programme in 2013, with a clear plan developed since then to deliver the programme.

Now this reset has taken place, future Major Projects Authority reports will give a traffic light status, says the DWP.

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, Universal Credit

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Was Churchill more open with MPs in 1940 than DWP is over Universal Credit?

Posted on 22/05/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

As the DWP manoeuvres again to stop reports on the Universal Credit programme being published it’s worth asking: has the DWP got its 2-year legal battle to keep the reports secret out of perspective?

Work and Pensions minister Lord Freud personally signed off his department’s request to keep the UC reports secret; and his secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith seems untroubled by MPs’ criticisms that Parliament is not kept properly informed about the UC programme’s problems.

The lack of openness and transparency over problems with the UC programme is “not acceptable,” said the all-party Work and Pensions Committee in April.

The four reports would, if published, inform Parliament about how much senior civil servants knew about the problems with UC while ministers and the department  were assuring MPs the scheme was on time and to budget.

This isn’t the reason the DWP does not want the reports published: it has an unofficial rule not to publish any reports on the progress or otherwise of its big IT-based projects and programmes.

Not even Parliament is allowed sight of minutes of UC meetings, the updated UC business case, UC risk registers, issues registers, project assessment reviews or high-level milestone schedules.

In its arguments to the Upper Tribunal this week lawyers for the DWP argue in paragraph after paragraph that publication of the UC reports would have a “chilling effect” on senior civil servants.

But the DWP may not appreciate the extent to which its attempts to keep Parliament, the press and public in the dark trivialise the vigorous and noble attempts by some prime ministers in the last century to keep Parliament well informed on what was going well or not with major government plans.

Churchill stands out as a PM who was remarkably open, even during one of the darkest times in the history of Britain, in 1940, when the government had every reason to marginalise Parliament. It’s easy to believe Churchill was too busy to attend Parliament and that he had the best possible excuse for not keeping MPs informed: he didn’t want to forewarn Britain’s enemies.

In fact Parliamentary archives show that Churchill in 1940 was meticulous about keeping Parliament informed – about his concerns as well as as his reasons for optimism.

With London being bombed and a fleet of 1900 fully-armed ships and barges gathered at German-occupied ports ready to invade Britain, Churchill came to the House of Commons to account for government actions. He even answered a Parliamentary question in September 1940 on pensions.

On 30 July 1940 Churchill opened a public debate in the House of Commons on whether Parliament should go into secret session. France had just fallen and the government was preparing for what Churchill called the Battle of Britain. He had every reason to go into secret session. He allowed a free vote.

Churchill also rejected calls for automatic secret sessions of Parliament. There had to be a debate and free vote each time.

Compare Churchill’s determination to keep Parliament properly informed at a time when the freedom of every British citizen was in peril and the DWP’s repeated attempts to stop information reaching Parliament, the press and the public on what departmental reports were saying about the Universal Credit programme in 2012.

Churchill and other MPs, including Labour’s Josiah Wedgwood, argued that openness was needed because criticism of the government by an informed press and Parliament was an essential part of the democratic process. Criticism could be a stimulus to act.

But what we now have at the DWP are departmental civil servants and ministers who want information on the Universal Credit programme to be state-controlled, apart from the one-off reports of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee which the DWP cannot control.

Only the Work and Pensions Committee provides regular scrutiny of the UC programme – but its MPs complain of being kept in the dark.

Churchill in Parliament’s secret sessions had good reason for secrecy. His notes published after the war show that he spoke in a secret session of Parliament in 1940 on the need for British forces to “get through the next 3 months” then they will “get through the next 3 years”. He discussed the Allies’ military errors and German strengths and weaknesses.

Now we have the DWP marginalising Parliament – not publishing the contents of departmental reports on UC – because of the chilling effect on senior civil servants.

There can be little dispute that Churchill was more open in Britain’s darkest hour than the DWP is today on Universal Credit programme.  For even  when Parliament went into secret session in 1940, all MPs, including the government’s opponents, were included in the discussions. Only “strangers” – non-MPs – were excluded.

That’s a million miles from what’s happening at the DWP. All ordinary MPs are excluded from the DWP’s detailed discussions on the UC programme.  The DWP is shielding Parliament from knowing what is in the UC programme reports.

As I asked earlier: is the DWP’s fear of openness over UC reports out of perspective?

 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Universal Credit

DWP tries anew for leave to appeal FOI ruling on Universal Credit reports

Posted on 22/05/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

The DWP is continuing its protracted legal fight to stop publication of four reports on the Universal Credit programme.

The department this week asked the upper tribunal for leave to appeal a decision of the first-tier information tribunal that the four reports be published.  The first-tier tribunal had refused the DWP leave to appeal.

As expected, the DWP is doing everything possible within the FOI Act to stop the UC programme reports being published. This is despite MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee saying there is a “lack of transparency” on the Universal Credit programme.

The reports in question are more than two years old but they would show how much ministers knew about UC programme problems at a time when the DWP was issuing regular press releases claiming the scheme was on time and to budget.

By law the DWP has to deal with every FOI request individually but in practice the department has rejected every FOI request for reviews and assessments of its major IT-enabled projects and programmes including Universal Credit.

The four reports in question are:

– A project assessment review on the state of the UC programme in November 2011, as assessed by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority.

– A risk register of possible risks to the development or eventual operation of UC as perceived by those involved.

– An issues register of problems that have materialised, why and how they can be minimised or eliminated.

– A milestone schedule of progress and times by which activities should be completed.

In his request to the upper tribunal for leave to appeal the first-tier tribunal’s decision, the DWP’s lawyer  argues that the first-tier tribunal wholly misunderstood the nature of any “chilling effect” that publishing the reports would have on the frankness of civil servants contributing to them.

He said that the tribunal’s finding that disclosure of the reports would have no chilling effect was “perverse”, and that the tribunal failed to give due weight to the evidence of a senior civil servant Sarah Cox on the chilling effect.

He said that “many ex-ministers and others have spoken of the chilling effect of disclosure as an observable phenomenon within government” though he provided no evidence of this in his submission.

He added that the first-tier tribunal’s reasoning was “defective” in a number of respects. The tribunal had made a fundamental error of law, he said.

The tribunal’s “factual conclusion that disclosure of the disputed information would have no chilling effect whatsoever was one which no reasonable tribunal, properly directing itself as to the relevant legal principles, could have reached,” said the DWP’s lawyer.

Judge refuses DWP leave to appeal FOI ruling on Universal Credit reports

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, project management, public sector, public services, Universal Credit

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