Rishi Sunak may be a big fan of Instagram but he hasn’t always demonstrated such a sure touch for tech. The Twitter-savvy politician made headlines earlier this month after claiming that he couldn’t raise welfare benefits to shield the most vulnerable because of a ‘technically complicated’ IT system.
Pressed a fortnight ago on further support, Sunak said that such a move was ‘not necessarily possible’ as ‘many of the systems are built so it can only be done once a year, and the decision was taken quite a while ago.’ Hardly the white heat of technology, eh? A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) subsequently confirmed that benefits programmes involved ‘complex and inefficient paper-based systems that are slowed further by ageing, inflexible IT’, with changes taking ‘several months to process.’
Now though, it seems that Whitehall mandarins have at last grasped the nettle of reform. For Mr S spotted on the government contracts website that the DWP has been frantically searching for a new team to manage the department’s security risk. A £200,000 contract was last week advertised to provide ‘consulting, software development, Internet and support’ to those responsible for managing the UK’s benefits system. Thankfully, it has already been filled. Let’s hope that finally improves the department’s long-suffering tech problems…
And that’s not the only contract which caught Steerpike’s eye. For elsewhere in Whitehall, staff have just put out a £300,000 offer to run the communications for the ‘Centre for Disaster Protection.’ Established in 2017, this Foreign Office agency ‘works to change how the world prepares and pays for disasters’ by ‘identifying, planning for, and financing’ them.
Sounds like the perfect job for any out of work No. 10 staffers looking for a quieter life in another government post.
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