ATOS: DWP to Reward Failure with New Contract, as Sanctions Hit Hard.

Just when you thought they’d gone away.

The obviously indispensable site Computing revealed this a couple of days ago:

DWP to pay Atos £10m to extend disability reassessments contract

By Sooraj Shah

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is to extend French IT services firm Atos’ multi-million pound deal to handle disability reassessments, despite the company wanting to walk away from the contract in February.

The firm, which would have had to pay a fee to the government to end its contract early, has been criticised for its declining standards of service.

tos had said previously that it would continue to take the tests until a new firm takes over, and the government still intends for another assessment services provider to take charge as it has started the procurement process to identify a suitable supplier.

But in an Official Journal of the European Union contract award notice, DWP said that it needed an interim arrangement “to support the authority’s statutory duties to deliver certain health and disability benefits”.

A DWP spokesman said that despite the department looking for a new provider, it would look to replace the current IT separately.

“To make sure claimants get a good service during transformation, we are transferring the IT separately, and at a later date, than the rest of the service (which transfers in 2015),” the spokesperson stated.

“We have therefore asked Atos to continue to provide the current IT services for a further year. In the meantime work has started on planning for how we replace the IT”.

A DWP spokesman said that despite the department looking for a new provider, it would look to replace the current IT separately.

“To make sure claimants get a good service during transformation, we are transferring the IT separately, and at a later date, than the rest of the service (which transfers in 2015),” the spokesperson stated.

“We have therefore asked Atos to continue to provide the current IT services for a further year. In the meantime work has started on planning for how we replace the IT”.

The managed IT services contract is initially for one year of delivery from the end of Atos’ current assessment services contract in 2015. DWP will have an option to extend the contract for up to four further one year extensions “to provide contingency”.

The value of the contract, which is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) is £10m, plus any additional costs of change. The value of any subsequent years will be based on the overall year one costs, the contract award notice reads.

DWP’s justification for the award of the contract without a call for competition was because the services could only be provided by a particular tenderer.

It said that it wouldn’t be possible for a new provider to build, test and deliver IT services in time for the new contract, and that the existing hardware, software and equipment would not be able to be used by another supplier because it is owned by Atos rather than DWP. Another supplier would also not be able to replicate this because “there is insufficient documentation to build them” and because the age of some of the physical assets means they are no longer available to purchase.

Computing predicted severe problems for Universal Credit in 2013.

In another article it has this interesting analysis of why the DWP is marked by cock-ups, miserable failures, and efforts to cover up its grinding-the-faces-of-the-poor Minister Iain Duncan Smith.

It came from somebody who had worked for this crew of chancers.

In an exclusive interview with Computing, the former employee said that one project he worked on was the refresh of a significant chunk of infrastructure and software, for which the team handling the project did not determine any business requirements before going forward with their plans.

“Over three or four years, identical systems had grown up in parallel and the projects committee which looks after all of this said we don’t want a fifth or sixth one, so let’s consolidates this, which was the right thing to do,” he said. “But the team immediately went out to the field, and said they’ll use the four systems as a reference point to build a new one, with the inevitable result that the supplier is just going to reproduce what’s already there.”

Other issues with projects included not having a central document repository for information. In one such instance, the consultant asked a project manager where he could find all of the relevant information and waited for two weeks before the project manager responded with the relevant answers. In the manager’s response, he said: “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it took this long to find the information”, the consultant claimed.

He said that Microsoft SharePoint had been implemented but that it was something the department was not leveraging.

As DWP looked to improve project management within the department, it held a presentation for 100 of its team, which the consultant also attended.

We confidently predict yet more balls-up as Universal Credit comes in.

Meanwhile this has just come out (17th July), Benefits sanctions double against women, disabled and lone parents (BBC).

New figures show the number of women, disabled people and lone parents in Scotland having benefits sanctioned has almost doubled in the past four years.

Lone parents say it means children are punished and that having their benefits suddenly stopped for weeks or months is traumatic.

They say it means not knowing how to buy food or pay the bills.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said sanctions are only used as a last resort and can be challenged.

Under recent changes to the system, claimants can have their benefits taken away for months and jobseeker’s ­allowance removed for up to three years for reasons such as missing, or being late, for job centre appointments or failing to show they are looking for work.