Appearing before a Work and Pensions Select Committee hearing on Monday, Shiplee admitted that the UC IT programme did not deliver on its promise to enable claimants to manage their accounts online, but said: “One of the issues in the early days was that there was a mantra of ‘digital by default’. From a security point of view, to have everything digital is not at this point a sensible solution.”
Mike Driver, finance director general at the Department for Work and Pensions, who appeared in the same hearing, said that IT due to be written off is worth £40.1m, compared to the £34.4m the department had estimated.
The department will present a revised business case in the new year.