Cameron said 25% of the budget to build the new Universal Credit IT system would go to Small/Medium-sized businesses (SMEs). So far it’s 1%

KJ, Fee and Chris know why...

SOURCE GUARDIAN: Universal credit scheme will waste at least £140m, say MPsThe universal credit scheme has been overseen by "alarmingly weak" management, with systems so lax that a secretary was allowed to authorise purchase orders worth £23m, according to the public accounts committee. Margaret Hodge, the committee's chair, said that the pilot programme is not a proper pilot. "It does not deal with the key issues that universal credit must address: the volume of claims; their complexity; change in claimants' circumstances; and the need for claimants to meet conditions for continuing entitlement to benefit."

SOURCE COMPUTER WEEKLY: Less than 1% of Universal Credit IT spend goes to SMEs

More than two years after prime minister David Cameron launched the coalition's SME initiative, aiming for government to do 25% of its business with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its major IT suppliers have employed virtually no SMEs on the government’s biggest IT project. Less than 1% of the IT spending for the government’s flagship Universal Credit programme has gone to SMEs.

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