Auditors challenge government over cost of universal credit IT problems
Does anyone know if the much troubled Universal Credit has been rural proofed? If so lets hope it involved better logic than the faulty brand exposed by the NAO here. This article tells us:
The government’s official independent auditors have challenged claims by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, that IT problems associated with that new universal credit scheme have cost taxpayers only £41m.
The National Audit Office points out that the DWP has been forced to write down a further £91m of software assets three times more quickly than was previously envisaged.
The department said it had increased its initial write-off of its failed IT system for universal credit up to £41m. However, it said it was justifiable to declare a remaining £90m of IT software as being written down, rather than written off, because its value would be drawn down over a five-year period, by which time universal credit would have been introduced.
The NAO auditor general, Amyas Morse, said this represented “a major change in accounting treatment” and said £90m of assets were now having to be written down at a pace of £18m a year instead of the previous estimate of £6m a year.
The NAO also raises serious doubts about whether plans to introduce a new core digital software will work, or even ever grow to any size quickly