DWP awards another big IT contract to another big supplier

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded technology services company Accenture a seven-year contract worth between £50m and £70m a year to deliver, develop and maintain services for its customer-facing systems.

The contract will see Accenture provide customer-facing elements of the IT solution for Universal Credit, the government's ambitious programme to streamline the working-age benefits system.

The services will include application development and maintenance services for the Application Suite, which is a benefits contact portal for claimants accesible via the telephone or web.

Atos will act as the main sub-contractor to Accenture, partly because it is already working with the DWP on its controversial Work Capacity Assessment system, which tests how far people with disabilities are able to work.

In July this year, some MPs admitted the assessment was being administered unfairly.

Mark Lyons, Accenture's UK and Ireland managing director for health and public service, said: "This new contract builds on our longstanding relationship with DWP and is based on our ability to offer deep industry skills and insight from our global network."

The deal follows two significant DWP contracts signed with IBM and Capgemini in September this year. The deals were worth £525m and £70m respectively and the contracts will also run for seven years.

As noted at the time, the move is somewhat contrary to the government's pledge to use small- and medium-size companies for services wherever possible, a move that would see it break the oligopoly of the big suppliers.

Following the release of the last government ICT strategy, minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said: "We will end the oligopoly of big business supplying government IT by breaking down contracts into smaller, more flexible projects. This will open up the market to SMEs and new providers."

Seperately, the DWP announced earlier this week that 30 per cent of the technology required to run the Universal Credit IT programme is now in place. The department said in a statement that the project was "on time and on budget".

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith said: "Universal Credit is the most radical redesign of the benefits system this country has ever seen.

"The programme is on track and on time for implementing from 2013. We are already testing out the process on single and couple claimants, with stage one and two now complete."

Between October 2013 and April 2014, 500,000 new claimants will receive Universal Credit in place of Jobseekers Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.

By 2017, 12 million working age benefit claimants will have been migrated onto the new system.