From the Guardian:
Labour says universal credit will take 495 years to roll out as costs rise £3bn, by Rajeev Syal and Rowena Mason, Friday 26 June 2015
Iain Duncan Smith’s scheme to integrate welfare benefits has suffered numerous delays and revisions to its budget over the past few years.
The overall cost of Iain Duncan Smith’s key welfare scheme appears to have risen by £3bn to £15.8bn in two years, according to an official report that shows several other significant government programmes are also in danger of collapsing.
Universal credit, the troubled programme that plans to roll six welfare benefits into one payment, has also suffered a further year’s delay and will not be fully implemented until 2020.
The figures are disclosed in a Major Projects Authority report. It also shows that more than half of all of the government’s leading projects, including HS2, are in danger of failing.
A majority of seven million benefit claimants were supposed to be on the new welfare scheme by 2019, according to a statement from Duncan Smith last year.
According to the report, the “total budgeted whole-life costs” of universal credit will be £15.84bn and will be completed in April 2020.
In 2012, the estimated cost for universal credit was £12.85bn. No figures were available in 2013 because Duncan Smith was forced to reset the entire scheme.
The scheme, championed by Duncan Smith with David Cameron’s support, received royal assent in 2012 with initial plans for a full roll-out by the 2015 general election.
A pilot scheme has been introduced in selected areas, but only 65,000 people in the UK are currently claiming universal credit, according to government data.
Stephen Timms, the acting shadow work and pensions secretary, called for the government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, to review the management of the scheme.
“These new figures have shown how wrong Iain Duncan Smith is to claim universal credit is ‘on time and on budget’. It will take 495 years to fully roll out universal credit at the current rate,” he said.
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokeswoman claimed that there has been no overall increase in costs, and blamed the apparent increase in costs on an accounting device.
“There is no increase to the budget for universal credit – this is just an accounting measure which includes the cost of running universal credit over more years. In fact we’ve reduced the investment costs for universal credit by 25%. When fully rolled out UC will bring economic benefit of £7bn a year,” she said.
A source close to Duncan Smith insisted that the use of an accounting convention by the Major Projects Authority meant that the next 10 years’ estimated expenditure had included the scheme’s start-up costs. The report examines the costs of all major projects and rates them using a traffic light scheme. It found that 112 major projects in 2014 were in danger of failing. Only 76 were considered likely to succeed.
HS2, the high-speed rail link connecting London to the Midlands, has been designated as “amber/red” alongside universal credit – meaning that successful delivery of the project is in doubt.
Critical official reports on HS2 from 2012 and 2011 were also released on Thursday after the government gave up a freedom of information battle to prevent their publication.
The 2012 report listed “significant risks” as a coordinated campaign by concerned stakeholders that prevents access for essential survey activities, establishing an “appropriate understanding of the resolution of the affordability challenge” between the Department of Transport and the Treasury, and taking the project to deliver phase with effective governance.
The latest MPA report said its forecast lifetime costs remained steady at around £42.6bn in 2014.
Duncan Smith’s programme to replace disability living allowance with a new personal independence payment has also been given an “amber/red” rating.
The Department of Health had the highest number of projects designated as “red” – seen as under the worst threat of failure – by the Major Projects Authority. Its vulnerable schemes include Care.data, the controversial anonymised medical data plan, a scheme to overhaul death certification in the wake of the Harold Shipman murders, the National Pandemic Flu Service, the NHS Choices website, and the Health and Social Care Network, which is intended to improve integration of health and social care.
The Ministry of Defence also had several troubled projects, including the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier project on “amber/red” and the Future Reserves 2020 programme, which is the recruitment of reserves to replace army regulars.
In an embarrassment for the chancellor, George Osborne’s plan for tax-free childcare was also given an amber/red score because of a legal challenge, which has now been resolved.
And in the Ministry of Justice, the costs of the department’s plan to overhaul rehabilitation by partnering with more private companies were revealed as £9.6bn and given an amber/red rating. The same department’s National Offender Management Service IT services contract, which sets up technology to track offenders, has also been classified as in trouble.
