Pension Service transforms IT
Latest phase of transformation programme nears completion with streamlined applications
Pensioners entitled to multiple state benefits will be able to apply with a single phone call when the current phase of a £700m project to transform the Pension Service is completed next month.
Older citizens may be eligible for a range of benefits, including the state pension, pension credit, housing benefit, winter fuel allowance and council tax relief. But the previous system had no single point of contact.
The change is part of the six-year Pensions Transformation Programme (PTP), which started when the Pension Service was spun off from the Benefits Agency in 2002.
The first phase of the PTP was to cut the state pension application process from two phone calls and a lengthy paper form – which could take as long as seven weeks – to one call, with payment often within seven days.
Implementation of stage two, to provide an integrated service for all benefits, began in July and will be rolled out to all 10 call centres by the end of October.
The current phase is pivotal to the overall programme, Pension Service chief information officer Martin Bellamy told Computing.
‘The first step was to rethink the way we operate as a business so it is not product-centric but based on processes that do things that are meaningful for customers,’ he said.
‘From a single conversation with the customer we can now establish eligibility for the state pension, pension credit, housing and council tax benefit.’
There are two remaining phases of the programme, which will be implemented in parallel with the streamlining of the existing 28 contact centres to 10.
From next autumn the system will be able to reassess total benefits eligibility as a pensioner’s circumstances change – if they move house or have health issues, for example. The final phase is to develop a paperless business so that even if pensioners prefer to send in paper forms, their information can be scanned and coded immediately and all work done on screen.
The Pension Service has 12 million customers and pays £60bn of benefits per year in 400 million individual payments.
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