Iain Duncan Smith furiously defended his flagship welfare reform today, denying it was a £2.4 billion “disaster” and blaming civil servants for failures.
In the wake of a damning report into Universal Credit, the Work and Pensions Secretary accepted the project had faced deep problems.
But he pledged to deliver it “in time and on budget”, despite the review uncovering £34 million of wasted spending and major flaws in the project’s £425 million IT system.
Speaking on BBC Radio, he said: “This is not an IT disaster, this will be delivered in time and on budget. I am not and will not be spending a penny more than we originally planned. I hope and believe that with the way that we’ve changed this, we will actually be more efficient in delivering this and save the taxpayer further money.”
Universal Credit will replace a bundle of benefits by 2017, with the Government estimating £38 billion of savings by 2023. Mr Duncan Smith, who faced questions on the scheme in the Commons today, has staked his reputation on it. Signs things were going wrong emerged when pilot projects were delayed. Then earlier this year a former Olympics executive was drafted in to “reset” the programme. A National Audit Office report published today found the scheme, set to cost £2.4 billion to implement, had been beset by “weak management, ineffective control and poor governance”.
The report said ministers launched the project without knowing how it would work, and still had no complete understanding of how the IT system would function, while the lead team had nurtured a “fortress culture” that only allowed good news about progress.
Mr Duncan Smith admitted he had “lost faith” in his department’s civil servants, “which is why in 2011, with my concerns, I changed the programme”. He argued he had introduced pilot schemes to test the project, carried out an independent review and brought in a troubleshooter. But the NAO concluded ministers had still not achieved “value for money” on spending to the end of April this year.
Margaret Hodge, chairwoman of the Commons public accounts Committee, branded the project “a mess”. She said: “Confusion and poor management at the highest levels have already resulted in delays and at least £34 million wasted. If the department doesn’t get its act together, we could be on course for yet another catastrophic government IT failure.”
Shadow pensions secretary Liam Byrne claimed Mr Duncan Smith had “completely lost control”. He added: “Universal Credit is a titanic-sized IT disaster which [he] has tried to hide with cover-up after cover-up.”
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A DWP spokesman pointed out that the NAO had not looked at the project’s progress since April, led by a new management team. He said: “Under this new leadership we are making real progress.”
