The department, which has been working in recent years on transforming services and offering online options, has signed another deal with its existing digital commercial partner to support children’s services
The Department for Work and Pensions has retained incumbent supplier Tata Consultancy Services on a potential £60m five-year deal to help deliver digital Child Maintenance services.
The department and TCS – which is headquartered in India and is one of the world’s largest IT outsourcers – will enter into an initial four-year agreement on 1 September, newly published procurement records indicate. During that time the contract, which offers the DWP an optional one-year extension, could be worth up £59.5m, once VAT is included.
The department expects that about £14.4m of this possible value will be spent during the first year of the agreement. But the text of the contract specifies that financial details are “published as an indication… of the maximum amount which could be spent through this contract and shall not be taken by the supplier as a commitment or a forecast of likely revenue”.
The deal follows on directly from a previous 30-month engagement between the DWP and TCS, which reaches its conclusion at the end of this month. That contract offered the potential for more than £40m in spending.
Both agreements cover the provision of support for the department’s digital tools for users of its child maintenance services.
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The latest deal, which was awarded via the £4bn Digital Programmes and Specialists framework, will see TCS provide “application development as well as application maintenance and support of the DWP Digital Children Service line technology estate”.
This service area is comprised “primarily [of] the Child Maintenance Scheme (CMS) 2012 System which is underpinned by the CMS2012 application”, according to procurement information.
In recent years, this application has been the subject of a programme of modernisation, beginning with the launch in late 2019 of a private beta version of the DWP’s first ever digital service for parents seeking support with child maintenance arrangements.
While progress was hampered somewhat by the coronavirus crisis, the department now runs a full digital service, and continues to work on improvements, according to public consultation documents published by the DWP this summer.
“DWP is undergoing a transformation to modernise its services,” those documents say. “This includes work to re-design our customer service model to better support customers, resolving issues quicker and improving customer experience by organising more efficiently. Within the CMS, this includes allowing functions to be completed online – rather than requiring parents to contact caseworkers directly – and covers elements of the service from understanding options around child maintenance arrangements, completing applications, and managing cases.”
The DWP guidance adds: “These online services are available 24/7. We are also continuing to improve the communications with customers including greater use of SMS and email, as well as improving letter content. To improve the efficiency of the service, changes have been made to process simple actions automatically whilst improving training and guidance for CMS colleagues.”
A child maintenance plan and payments required for parents of children aged under 16 – or under 20, if the child is in education or training – that do not live together.
