DWP awards two-year Universal Credit hosting contract to SCC

SCC is the DWP's new hosting partner for delivering Universal Credit after signing a two-year deal

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has signed a two-year hosting partnership with London-based SCC, Europe's largest independent technology solutions company, in order to push ahead with Universal Credit.

The deal, the financial figures of which haven't been released, will see SCC deliver infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), service desk, secure site-to-site communication and appropriate monitoring and disaster recovery capability to the DWP.

The service will be delivered on SCC's Sentinal platform and will integrate with other government IT projects such as the PSN procurement network.

By signing the agreement with SCC, the DWP has opted to continue its relationship with the large IT vendor over selecting a smaller vendor, despite encouragement from the Cabinet Office for government departments to sign contracts with SMEs.

According to the terms of the deal, intelligence surrounding Universal Credit will be delivered internally by the DWP, while SCC provides the underlying infrastructure for the whole system. Naturally, SCC has welcomed the two-year deal with the DWP.

"This is a great example of a British company working to fully support the government's digital services strategy," said SCC head of central government Martin Parker.

"It is also testament to the continued and growing success of Sentinel by SCC as a secure cloud platform, and we are delighted that DWP has chosen to work with us in the rollout of this key government system," he added.

Universal Credit is the government scheme that seeks to roll Jobseeker's Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support benefits into a single benefit payment.

However, the project has been heavily criticised since its inception and plagued by IT issues and budget overspends. Indeed, just this week, Universal Credit was labelled a £700m flop that has had "very little progress" by the Public Accounts Committee.

In a report looking into the development of the programme, the PAC's chair Margaret Hodge said that little had been achieved on the front line.

"Fewer than 18,000 people were claiming Universal Credit by October 2014, out of around seven million expected in the longer term - just 0.3 per cent of the eligible population," she said.

Nonetheless, Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith still maintains that the scheme is on target and under budget.