Government’s benefits department has retained familiar partner Deloitte to fulfil a deal lasting two years and covering the provision of various expert digital staff to support delivery of core services

The Department for Work and Pensions has signed a multimillion-pound deal for the provision of digital support for the organisation’s recently created unit overseeing the delivery of “working-age” services.

The DWP’s ‘Move to Universal Credit’ programme – through which millions of people have been migrate to the unified benefit stream – formally closed earlier this year. Replacing this project is the working age directorate, which covers the administration of UC and the department’s network of 646 Jobcentres.

The unit is also helming the creation and rollout of government’s new £50m-plus Jobs and Careers Service, which merge the current National Careers Service run by the Department for Education with the benefits and support provided via Jobcentres, as well as online tools such as the GOV.UK Find a job service – the delivery of which is being moved from a current outsourcing arrangement and is being brought back in-house.

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To support the work of the new unit administering benefits and careers services, the department has signed a deal described as an “overarching working age benefits resource contract”.

The contract, which was awarded to services firm Deloitte and came into effect at the start of last week, will provide the DWP with additional expert staff in a number of roles to assist with the department’s provision of benefit and employment services.

A recently published commercial notice says: “This contract seeks digital capabilities to support working age services by focusing on multi-disciplinary teams that will deliver defined modernisation objectives.”

The engagement with Deloitte is slated to run until December 2027 and is valued at £14.85m.

Earlier this year, the company was also awarded a £170,000 contract to “deliver an initial proof-of-concept Jobs and Careers [service] prototype to production, including the proof-of-concepts surrounding the development, deployment, and hosting of a mobile-friendly responsive web application”.