Documents reveal friction between Department for Work and Pensions and Cabinet Office as IT problems mount
Tensions between the DWP, for which Iain Duncan Smith (left) has responsibility, and the Cabinet Office, overseen by Francis Maude (right), are causing 'high level' risks to the scheme, according to the document. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Rex/Reuters
The government's flagship programme to shake up the benefits system is facing fresh problems in a battle between two departments at the heart of the scheme, documents leaked to the Guardian show.
Friction between Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Cabinet Office overseen by Francis Maude is now causing "high-level" risks to the delivery of the project, according to minutes of a Whitehall meeting.
Maude's department, minutes of the government's universal credit board confirm, has also accelerated the pullout of its elite team of IT experts from the project after what sources describe as serious tensions over the progress of the £2.4bn overhaul.
The DWP is now urgently searching for new IT specialists to keep the complex software project on track. As a result, future implementation of universal credit could now face delays and increased costs because of the pullout, senior civil servants have been told, according to the minutes.
One project insider, who did not want to be named, said the interdepartmental conflict had brought a "significant risk of delay" to the completion of the final universal credit design. "You are losing … people who are in on the ground floor, certainly immersed in universal credit policy and design plans. Now they are going to have to bring people up to speed and probably have to pay top dollar for them because they are going to have to be cutting-edge digital experts."
Universal credit, an idea championed and pursued by Duncan Smith, seeks to roll six benefits into a single, streamlined payment. But it has been dogged by design errors, multimillion pound write-offs and numerous setbacks. The project has also become more central to government plans to reduce the deficit after the chancellor, George Osborne, warned this week that a further £25bn of spending cuts would be needed after the next election. As much as £12bn could be taken from the welfare budget, he said.
Despite a scathing NAO report in September, Duncan Smith has been insistent that the project remained on time and on budget. In December he revealed a new plan for delivering the project.
Sources indicate that tensions between government departments spiked after Duncan Smith refused to restart the embattled project afresh – a move that would have incurred massive write-off costs and political embarrassment.
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