Former DWP employee slams department for "risk averse" strategy and seeking tabloid approval

Lead IT suppliers are equally to blame for project flaws, claims ex-consultant

A former Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) employee has lifted the lid on the department's project management issues after the Universal Credit debacle, claiming that employees' first consideration is to worry about whether the Daily Mail would approve of their actions.

"The first consideration [for employees] is asking what the Daily Mail says if they hear about it. This is the headline issue, everyone is driven by worrying whether the Daily Mail will approve it or not," the employee, who worked as a contractor at DWP but wishes to remain anonymous, told Computing.

DWP employees are driven by three things, he said: "Don't risk anything, don't challenge anything and aim for final delivery.

"They are all absolutely focused on delivering things; micro-focused on separate projects, so that at the end of the year they can go into their assessment and tick a box which says ‘I was the head of this project and it has delivered' – whether it works is completely arbitrary," he said.

The ex-employee said that he sat in on a meeting with a supplier that said that it was going to charge the DWP a significant amount of money to do a proof of concept (POC).

"I challenged that, and asked what we are we getting for that amount of money, and the answer from the supplier was 'we're not quite sure what we're going to deliver but we need this amount of money'," he said.

But the former consultant does not think it is a matter of the DWP "just falling for it", but rather an insecurity that a supplier will go elsewhere for business.

"If a supplier is registered on the G-Cloud then it is taken as someone else has checked its credentials and that it can do what it says it can do, there is a complete fear of challenging outside suppliers. I've asked [DWP employees] to ask suppliers what they're going to do with the £40m that they're requesting, and I've got a response like ‘you can't be too harsh about it because otherwise these people will go elsewhere'," he said.

However, the ex-employee believes that this is not a skills problem, claiming that there are "one or two stars" in the team, but that what is lacking is the willingness to challenge decisions.

"You can suggest something and people say to your face that they'll look at it, but you know they will stick to their original plans," he said.

Accenture, IBM, HP and BT are the lead IT suppliers of the project, and the former consultant believes that some of these big suppliers are equally to blame for many of the issues at DWP.

"Let's face it, some of the suppliers are saying 'oh yeah you're going to give us £10m to write a website, let's go'," he said.