After operating for 10 years and growing to ‘millions of lines of code’, Universal Credit platform will be adapted and built upon in supporting updated versions of JSA and ESA
The Department for Work and Pensions has signed a potential £13.5m contract to help reuse the technical foundations of the digital service used for the administration of Universal Credit to support the delivery of New Style benefits.
In doing so, the department claims that it hopes to better support its provision of New Style Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance (ESA and JSA) by replacing an “outdated system with a modern digital one”.
The so-called New Style iterations of ESA and JSA were first introduced in 2019. The previous versions, which are being replaced by Universal Credit, included payments based both on income and on National Insurance contributions – while the New Style versions are solely contribution-based.
The aim is for all remaining claimants of the outgoing ‘legacy benefits’ to be migrated to replacements by March 2026.
As this landscape free of the old versions of ESA and JSA draws closer, recently released commercial documents reveal that senior managers in the DWP “have made a strategic choice to reuse the Universal Credit Service to support New Style JSA and New Style ESA benefits given the large amount of overlap across its requirements”.
“Based on our current operating model, this is expected to require digital specialists in a range of roles over the next two years,” according to the text of a contract between the department and public sector digital specialist Astraeus Consulting.
The supplier has been retained to provide the DWP with 29 personnel in range of technical and project-management roles.
The department entered into an initial two-year deal with the firm on 30 January; the engagement covers the “development and maintenance of key digital assets underpinning Universal Credit to support build of [the] New Style service”.
Up to £10.8m will be spent over the course of the agreement – plus a potential additional £2.7m if a six-month extension is put in in place.
For this price, the supplier will “provide building out of the New Style service; [including] service documentation and knowledge transfer across a number of key areas” the contract says.
This will encompass efforts to “define and prioritise sustainable service objectives to deliver New Style benefits, focusing on long-term usability, maintainability, and adaptability”.
Astraeus will further be expected to help “steer and guide New Style product roadmaps ensuring they provide clarity to stakeholders on priorities, timelines, and expected outcomes”, while also spearheading efforts to “engage with New Style stakeholders across business, technical, and operational teams to ensure shared understanding of product goals and priorities”.
As well as this planning and strategic support, the supplier is contracted to deliver “technical leadership” and will “provide hands-on build of the solution to support New Style, ensuring adherence to best practices in coding, testing, and DevOps”.
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Throughout the coming months, the firm will also manage releases of new versions of the service and will support product testing.
This will require work to “maintain clear communication with stakeholders about releases, including release notes, resolved issues, and known limitations”.
The contract states that the operation of Universal Credit requires “one of the largest scaled product development teams in government, [including] 16 product teams and eight platform teams across four locations”. The document adds that “knowledge management and transfer is expected to be a critical part of the delivery”.
In a section providing background to the upcoming work, the commercial agreement outlines the decade-long progress and expansion of the digital services supporting Universal Credit.
“The Universal Credit digital service is now 10 years old,” it says. “During that time it has scaled rapidly to meet the influx of claims generated in Covid, [and] been adapted and changed to meet new ministerial demands and grown to millions of lines of code,” the contract says. “The service is subject to a high frequency of change to keep pace with user expectations and government changes. It is how we provide welfare payments, support job centres and provide work coaching. The service supports over six million claimants receiving essential payments from the government and is used by over 20,000 DWP staff.”
In response to enquiries from PublicTechnology, a DWP spokesperson said: ““This contract is another step in helping us replace New style’ Jobseekers Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance’s outdated system with a modern digital one. Building on the successful development of Universal Credit as a digital service, we can increase efficiency and better support over 800,000 people into work to help grow the economy and deliver the Plan for Change.”
