How to create an IT disaster

 

Laugh or cry?

The coalition are heading for the precipice. In yesterday's blog, I reported the PASC Select Committee report. It was an unanimous warning from the all-party committee that their policies are unworkable.

Tomorrow there is a similar message from another unexpected Tory source. 

"The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Universal Credit — the Government’s answer to simplifying the benefits system — has been moved to the top of George Osborne’s warning list of projects that could fail and threaten the Coalition.

A team of senior Whitehall officials and industry experts has been assigned to investigate the development of the single payment, which is due to replace several different benefits in 2013.

Concerns centre on the ability of HM Revenue and Customs, which will have a central role in delivering Universal Credit, to meet its deadlines. HMRC chiefs are understood to have privately told ministers of their concerns about the timetable.

 

Universal Credit, the brainchild of Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is the centrepiece of the Government’s welfare reform agenda and is vital to David Cameron’s political and economic strategy. It will replace benefits including Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Housing Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.

Ministers say a simpler benefits system will help cut down on the £5 billion a year wrongly paid out through fraud and error. Universal Credit is also intended to encourage claimants to work, by allowing them to keep more of their benefits when they start to earn. But Mr Osborne, the Chancellor who is also head of Conservative election strategy, is said to have become concerned about the plans as part of efforts to identify policy that could go wrong and threaten his party’s prospects.

The fears within Whitehall echo alarm already expressed by independent observers. The National Audit Office has warned that the welfare reform programme faces major risks. The chairman of the Commons public accounts committee has called the plan “a train crash waiting to happen”.

The reason for this group worry is the fragility of the information technology.  PASC previous report scream out a warning of the abject failure of IT Government projects. Who now believes in IT?

Only Iain Duncan Smith, it appears. He has a sorry record of failure. What will it be, a u-turn or a car-crash?

 

 

Comments

[D.G.]

IT itself isn't the problem - hundreds of multinational corporations use it every day with varying amounts of success. The problem lies in the procurement and project management of it.

If Universal Credit is a failure, it's low-paid workers who'll suffer. It mustn't be allowed to fail.

[rwendland]

Universal Credit has more than an IT problem. It involves central govt taking over (in some fashion) rebates operated by Local Authorities now - Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. That's going to be a very big problem to chew.

It is the accumulation of withrawals of multiple independent credits/benefits that leads to the edge case 90+% Marginal Deduction Rate Cameron and the press sometimes highlight. To get round this you have to merge the systems so a top 70% or so Marginal Deduction Rate can be implemented.

So the Universal Credit in principle is a good idea, but implementing it another matter. I'm sure Brown&co considered this when introducing Tax Credits, but wisely decided this was too big a problem to tackle at that time.