The Department of Work and Pensions has axed a computer
system being developed to process benefits payments after spending
more than £140m on it in three years.
The news comes just two months after ministers announced that
the DWP’s crisis-ridden Child Support Agency would be closed down,
following the collapse of its £456m IT system.
The Benefits Processing Replacement Programme was originally
designed to bring together and streamline the processing of a range
of different benefits.
But it is understood that there were questions over how this
would be done, before the announcement of a new Employment Support
Allowance in January led to a change of priorities.
The programme had been expected to save £60m, but cost £141m in
the three years since it was begun, the BBC’s Today programme
revealed. The system was axed in February without ever being put
into use.
A spokesman for the DWP said, “In line with best practice and in
the light of concerns about the progress of this programme, BPRP
was recently reviewed.
“As a result, the programme has been refocused to concentrate on
the delivery of the new Employment Support Allowance announced in
January of this year.”
He added, “The previous programme has now been formally closed,
although a number of individual projects within it are being taken
forward.”
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