Thursday, 7 November 2013

DWP Slammed For 'Shocking Lack of Financial Control' On Universal Credit

A ‘good news only’ culture masked a ‘shocking lack of financial control’ of the government’s Universal Credit programme, as it emerged £140 million has been wasted on IT systems that cannot be used. This is the damning view of a cross-party committee, which slammed the DWP for ‘extraordinarily poor management’ over the flagship welfare reform which rolls several benefits into one single payment made direct to claimants.  The report says £140 million spent on IT assets will have to be written off, as they are unsuitable for use in the programme. A DWP spokesperson said it expects this to be substantially lower. Control over suppliers was ‘shocking’, with personal assistants signing off on multi-million purchase orders and individual payments that could not be linked to work delivered, the committee claimed. Download a copy of the report from the Parliament website.

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