Department for Work & Pensions
Introduction
DWP has been a strategic investor in the GC programme since 2006/07. In March 2008 DWP’s Business Case for GC outlined the following GC-dependent projects, pilots and initiatives.
DWP Summarised GC Exploitation Strategy
NTC Project
This is also referred to as the IT Information Flows for Local Authorities (ITIFLA) Phase 2 project, as it supplements DWP data held on the Customer Information System which is already available to 22,000 local authority users (via ITIFLA Phase 1), with HMRC tax credit data, required for the administration of Housing and Council Tax Benefits (HB/CTB).
The NTC Project will have a Big Bang approach to go live as the additional information on CIS will be received by DWP in bulk and then made available via the existing browser application. Access can be made via the Internet or GCSx (secure browser). DWP has decided to signal that Internet access to CIS will be “switched off”, to maintain momentum for sign-up to GCSx.
NTC is on track to go live in June 2008.
HERS
The Housing Benefit Matching System Electronic Referral and Scan (HERS) project replaces monthly CD exchanges of case level detail from and to the 408 local authorities in Scotland, England and Wales that administer HB/CTB, with an electronic bulk file transfer service. There is then, a dependency on the development of the bulk file transfer capability within DWP and by the GC programme. DWP’s File Transfer Gateway project (the DWP element of the dependency) is due to go live in November 2008. This should therefore be the target date for GC’s bulk file transfer capability for LAs.
In & Out of Work
Six LAs took part in piloting new processes to streamline communication between the DWP, HMRC’s Tax Credit Office and local authority Benefits Services. The streamlined processes relate to dealing with customers’ moving into and out of work and the associated information gathering and exchange required between the above organisations to quickly and accurately administer benefits and credits for the customer.
While pilot LAs have been using GC Mail and accessing CIS via GCSx as early as September 2007, the decision has now been made to roll out the In & Out of Work processes nationally. There is an interdependent relationship between GC and I&OoW national rollout as LAs require GCSx connection to take advantage of these new processes. The intention is to work very closely with GC in order to align implementation.
National rollout starts this autumn with a planned expansion to a further 14 LAs before the end of December 2008. It is planned that the remaining LAs will rollout during 2009.
e-Transfer Phase 1
The e-Transfer project seeks to replace paper information transfer with electronic bulk file transfer of benefit claim information gathered by Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and The Pension Service (TPS), which is required by local authorities to process HB/CTB. All phases have a dependency on GC’s bulk file transfer capability. Phase 1 will replace paper Local Authority Input Documents (LAIDs) - working age claims - with 408 bulk file transfers on a nightly basis to LAs. The files will be in the Portable Document Format (PDF) and can be scanned into LA document management systems.
Phase 1 is due to go live in November 2008.
e-Transfer Phase 2
Phase 2 will provide Extensible Markup Language (XML) files for both the LAID and TPS Local Authority Claim Information (LACI) document. This is to enable uploading directly into back office benefit processing systems, avoiding the need for scanning, indexing, or re-keying. The XML format will also enable production of pdf (readable) documents.
Phase 2 is due to go live in April 2009.
e-Transfer Phase 3
Phase 3 will provide XML and PDF files from the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) system, concluding the range of DWP claim-gather services for local authorities.
Phase 3 is due to go live no earlier than Sep 09.
Counter-fraud secure e-mail
The counter-fraud Secure e-Mail project was abandoned when DWP decided that GC would provide the Department’s secure e-mail requirements. The exchange of information between counter-fraud officers in LAs and DWP who are involved in jointly investigating cases of alleged benefit fraud takes place in face-to-face meetings. These are costly and wasteful, and in many instances meetings are cancelled and have to be rearranged, unnecessarily prolonging the length of the investigation. This can have an effect on the potential outcome of the investigation itself.
GC Mail will provide opportunities for investigators on both sides to save time and money during joint investigations.
Joint Working Partnerships
These partnerships are working in various parts of the country and in a variety of guises, with variances in the extent of co-location and partners involved. TPS Local Service, Social Services Income Assessment officers and Benefits Service visiting officers work in partnership to gather financial information from customers requiring a visit to obtain this information. As they are essentially asking the same information, in its optimum form, these partnerships enable visiting by one officer and updating of information to 3 organisations — joined-up government.
Since the HMRC security breach and Hannigan the JWPs have had to depend on fax exchanges, with the corresponding negative impact on time, cost and quality that this involves. JWPs have a dependency on LAs to connect to GC in the areas covered by partnership arrangements.
Tell Us Once
This DWP-led, cross-government project aims to provide a change of circumstances service that enables citizens to report births and deaths just once to government, which will than share the information and provide the appropriate services. Pilot work is already underway in Tameside, which is transferring Registrar data to DWP now via GC Mail.
Further pathfinder work is due to take place in the Autumn of 2008.
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