20 January 2006
Senior staff responsible for IT at Whitehall's largest department have claimed that the days of introducing risky 'big bang' technologies are over, but say that they are on course to provide complex benefits services online.
Pensions minister Stephen Timms, the man charged with improving the Department for Work and Pensions' poor reputation for IT projects, said his staff were gradually winning the battle to transform the UK welfare system through effective e-government.
Hosting a briefing at his Richmond House office in Whitehall on January 12, Timms said that senior DWP officials had put in place a five-point plan to improve both the setting up and day-to-day management of major IT projects and contracts.
This involved establishing a 'single enterprise architecture' across the department, integrating IT applications and services, merging previously problematic legacy systems and saving vital departmental cash by using 'commercial, off-the-shelf' software rather than bespoke, short-term and expensive products.
The aim, he told Public Finance, was to prevent a repeat of IT blunders such as the flawed £450m computer system that underpins maintenance payments at the Child Support Agency. That system, managed by US-owned firm EDS, has been blamed for many of the problems at the CSA, such as the backlog of payments to single parents. One problem has been the difficulty of transferring payments to the new system.
Timms said EDS was working closely with the DWP to resolve problems and had agreed to correct 'a number of defects' that remained. 'The system is now stabilising,' he said, adding that his five-point plan had been 'considerably influenced' by the department's experience with the CSA systems.
Stephen Holt, the DWP's chief operating officer, added: 'In terms of the old CSA system, we just won't do things like that any more – it's the last example of a “big bang” [IT] development.'
Turning his attention to the future, Timms said civil servants would soon provide IT systems that would allow people to claim benefits on-line.
Whitehall boasts of job cuts as PCS votes for two-day strike
The Cabinet Office believes that Whitehall is on target to meet its 70,000 civil service job cuts target by 2008, with new figures showing a decrease of 3,500 staff in the third quarter of 2005.
Public sector employment figures, published by the Office for National Statistics on January 13, shows that there were 566,700 civil servants in September 2005 — 3,560 fewer than in June.
A breakdown published by the Cabinet Office the same day shows that 14 of Whitehall's 23 core departments cut staff numbers. Revenue & Customs, the second largest, axed 920 staff, including 1,110 full-time jobs. It has taken on more part-time staff.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said the overall cut 'provides more evidence that the government is on course to meet its target'.
But some departments slowed their progress against the target.
The Department for Work and Pensions, which claims to have cut 14,000 of its 30,000 target, axed 240 posts last summer. However, the effect of job cuts there has sparked a planned 48-hour walkout on January 26 and 27. The Public and Commercial Services union claims that DWP services such as benefit payments have been disrupted and staff given excessive workloads.
Although the ONS figures show an overall 3,000 drop in Whitehall jobs, the government claims it has slashed more than 30,000 posts. The difference, ministers claimed, could be attributed to new ONS accounting methods, which have, for example, reclassified 12,000 magistrates' courts staff as Whitehall employees.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne, noting that overall public sector employment grew by 72,000 in the year to September, said: 'It is a shame that while Gordon Brown has spent his time and taxpayers' money expanding the public sector, we have not seen public services improve at the same rate.'
PFjan2006
