It isn’t a great surprise that the Major Projects Authority has announced that the Universal Credit scheme is having difficulties. What is surprising is that several other areas of DWP activity have been given the status of “Amber/Red” by the MPA: they are
- the benefit cap
- reforms to child maintenance
- personal independence implementation, and
- the fraud and error programme.
The assessments are fairly anodyne; it’s the ratings that give the clue that something is wrong, without necessarily saying what the problem is. The common factor mentioned in all of these ratings is IT. By contrast, the recurrent problems of procurement and sub-contracting is mentioned only intermittently – and the Work Programme, which is liable to founder because of it, is given a rating of “Green”.