The UK Government's New Welfare System Project - Report Example

A Report on the UK Governments New Welfare System Project Executive Summary The objective of the report is to present a brief analysis of the new welfare system project developed by the government of the United Kingdom (UK). It highlights the current situation faced by The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in its programme of Universal Credit. The report has also provided an in-depth understanding of the project roles and responsibilities in the DWP in which it has been revealed that the project focuses on providing welfare and pension facilities to the pubic along with providing significant contribution for reducing the level of poverty. In relation to the project planning, the department is critiqued for spending more money on information technology (IT) system which did not materialise to be productive and the inefficient planning was an outcome of poor project management. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Brief Background of the Project 5 Discussion 6 Project Roles and Responsibilities 6 Project Planning 7 Conclusion and Recommendation 9 References 11 Introduction The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was established in the year 2001 and is considered as the largest department for welfare along with pension policy in the United Kingdom (UK). The main responsibility of DWP is to provide welfare and pension facilities along with reducing child poverty (Crown, 2014). The department functions as a body to make individuals economically independent and provides guidance through modernised services to working age group, pensioners, disabled people, children and families (British Council, 2008). However, in recent times, the department’s programme of welfare and pension policy has been criticised for “poor project management” and a “lack of transparency”, as stated by Howard Shiplee who is responsible for the Universal Credit programme of DWP. Howard stated that “It’s clear to me there were examples of poor project management in the past, a lack of transparency where the focus was too much on what was going well and not enough on what wasnt and with suppliers not managed as they should have been” (Reid, 2013). According to Howard, it is very important to learn from the past mistakes and move forward by learning from the uncalled-for mistakes (Reid, 2013). With this consideration, the report intends to present a critical evaluation of the UK Government’s new welfare system project that has derived negative publicity from the concerned press by a considerable extent. The report is addressed to the Universal Credit Project Board with a set of recommendations to ensure that the emerging challenges from the project are mitigated. Brief Background of the Project Universal Credit is a programme offered under the UK Government’s new welfare system project. The main benefits of this programme is to provide benefits such as allowance to jobseekers, allowance to employment support, housing aids, working and child tax credit and income support which have to be pooled to a single payment method. It is also considered that this programme will help in reducing frauds in the nation. Recently, the DWP had been criticised as it was excessively spending on IT projects that were created to change the way in which welfare payments were given to the claimants as it required to be completely repaired. The National Audit Office (NAO) stated that the Universal Credit plan was over ambitious in relation to the time and program scope wherein 34 million euros of taxpayer currency had previously been written off on the project which is a part of IT initiative. The department took huge risks in meeting the short time scale and introduced a new approach for project management which was never used previously on the program. The department was incapable of giving explanations regarding its decision to use the ambitious plan and was not able to show its feasibility. It was reported that the department did not have any progress as the time scale was quite tight and they used an unfamiliar approach for project management that lacked an in-depth plan. Furthermore, the DWP used up an amount of 300 million euros on the IT system but it was of no use because the IT system was incapable to ascertain the fraudulent claims done from the welfare system (Hinks, 2013). Discussion Project Roles and Responsibilities The key role and responsibility of the UK Government’s new welfare system project is to recognise and tackle the main reasons of poverty in the nation instead of deriving and understanding the symptoms. The project of the DWP is also responsible for providing encouragement to the individuals for working and ensuring that the amount paid for the work done is appropriate and viable. The project also plays a key role in encouraging physically handicapped or disabled individuals along with individuals who have bad health to get employed and become independent. It also ensures in providing individuals reasonable income particularly to people who are in the age of receiving pensions as well as encourage savings among people for retirement. It would be worth mentioning that this project provides significance to the monetary aspect and helps in reducing the level of fraudulent practices and certain errors. Furthermore, the project also takes responsibility of completely reducing the possibility of death while working and avoids getting any kind of serious injuries while carrying out the job function in the workplace with the help of Health and Safety Executive. There are certain roles involved in the project of DWP which include the role of providing assistance in poverty reduction and overall improvement in the system of social justice. Providing support to the individuals in finding job and making them sustain in the work place for a longer time are also vital roles of the project. It is observed that the project enables the disabled individuals to work with their full potential in their respective job. The project supports the individuals in saving more money after the retirement through pensions in their employment tenure and ensures that the State Pension system is simpler and rational. It can be asserted that the project helps people in recognising the essentiality of a family in providing a good foundation in life of every child. The project also plays a key role in bringing improvement to the services provided to the general public that is completely fair and just. There are numerous initiatives taken by the DWP’s project in providing the service to common people through Pension Service, Service of Child Maintenance and Jobcentre Plus that is developed in catering the needs of people (Crown, 2014). Project Planning The DWP has been planning to change the payment system made by the department through the programme of Universal Credit (UC). However, the UC of new welfare based system project in the UK has attracted negative publicity in the media. The plan involves the decision to provide availability of the UC at household level but it has been observed that this plan is criticised for many reasons. It is believed that this plan would create a risk of unfair biasness among women as most of the claimants would be male to avail the benefits of UC at the household level. It was also planned to incorporate child payments in UC that would not provide a transparent view of support related to child. This endeavour has raised concerns that this support would merely meet the purpose of sustenance. This provides an evidence that the project planning of the UC failed as it was a result of poor project management and there was a lack of transparency in the programme (BBC, 2012). Project planning of the department involves improving the financial incentives to the individuals at work and providing a qualitative service of employment. The belief of UC to make the work pay was one of the key factors for the success of departments’ welfare reform plan. The plan was to provide more help to individuals to carry out mini jobs but the incentive provided to individuals for working full time increased just marginally. However, this marginal increase has proved to be insufficient to people for providing benefits at work. With the plan to implement the UC, the DWP has taken the initiative to transform the operations of Jobcentre Plus (JCP), reforming the way in which the services are carried out and providing advisers the choice to access the needs of service users as per their suitability. In the present plan, it was forecasted that the department would be spending 401 million euros in the year 2013 and 317 million euros in the year 2014 on the IT along with improvement and operation of UC. The DWP has planned to introduce National Service Framework wherein pilots would develop the face-to-face delivery of the UC model along with the standardised digital service. The department has planned to initiate the digital strategy so that there would be an increase in transparency along with reduction in uncertainty through so that the services provided to the people are easily available and manageable online (Tarr & Finn, 2012). Conclusion and Recommendation The Department for Work and Pensions is the most recognised department for providing welfare and pension facilities along with reduction in child poverty in the UK. It has been observed that in the recent times, the DWP has been criticised for spending more on IT projects along with “poor project management” and “lack of transparency”. Although there are certain roles and responsibilities for the programmes offered under DWP, it has been observed that these programs have not met the actual purpose. The report focuses on the responsibilities of the programmes offered under DWP which include reducing poverty level in the UK and reforming the social justice system. It also highlights the project planning which involves the plan of changing the payment system made to the claimants wherein it has been decided that UC would be available at the household level. The plan also involves making the individuals work and get adequate payment for the work done along with providing individuals to undertake mini jobs. The department also plans to initiate reformation in the JCP function to enhance the service delivery and provide services as per the requirements. Therefore, it is very important for the department to improve its policies for helping and providing assistance to people. Consequently, it is highly recommended to establish a funding approach which would increase the expense made towards those groups of people who are facing huge problems. Claimants require to be supported by the JCP for a certain time period. They should be provided a contracted support in the work that is outcome based. It is also considered that there should be an improvement in the present regime for the unemployed people and good conditions should be introduced for the sole parents to avail Jobseeker Allowance who have younger children. It is also recommended for the DWP to develop programmes along with social policies with other government bodies. The department should develop certain policies for disabled individuals that would provide support in their early phase of disability along with providing employment to those individuals who can live independently (Freud, 2007). References BBC, 2012. Universal Credit Timetable on Track and on Time. UK Politics. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-19623730 [Accessed March 12, 2014]. British Council, 2008. 4.10 Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Gost Version, pp. 1-2. Crown, 2014. Department for Work & Pensions. What We Do. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about [Accessed March 12, 2014]. Freud, D., 2007. Reducing Dependency, Increasing Opportunity: Options For The Future Of Welfare To Work. Department for Work and Pensions, pp. 1-113. Hinks, J., 2013. UK Government Overspends on IT Welfare Payments System. Net Communities. [Online] Available at: http://www.itproportal.com/2013/09/06/uk-government-overspends-it-system-manage-welfare-payments/ [Accessed March 12, 2014]. Reid, A., 2013. Howard Shiplee Appointed to lead Universal Credit. Association for Project Management. [Online] Available at: http://www.apm.org.uk/news/howard-shiplee-appointed-lead-universal-credit#.UyBD5D-Sxy0 [Accessed March 12, 2014]. Tarr, A. & Finn, D., 2012. Implementing Universal Credit Will the Reforms Improve The Service For Users? Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, pp. 12-57. Read More