Debt recovery hit by IT woes

The government’s debt recovery arm has a backlog of more than half a million cases caused by problems with software intended to streamline the organisation.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Debt Management (DM) unit is responsible for recovering money owed back to the government, for example from benefits overpayments or fraudulent claims.

A national Debt Manager application was introduced last year as part of plans to rationalise local recovery units into 13 regional centres and replace multiple standalone systems with a single, integrated software package.

But recovery agents using the new system say it has been plagued with problems since it went live last year and is unable to process some common cases, such as claims against the estate of someone who has died.

The result, according to official figures seen by Computing, is a huge number of outstanding cases and missed debt recovery targets. The DM unit missed last year’s £200m target by more than £26m, and is already more than £8m behind for 2006/7, according to the figures.

Despite improvements in performance, the software is still not fit for purpose, say users.

‘When the system came in it was a complete disaster – there was day after day when we could not do any work,’ said a recovery agent in one regional office.

‘Over the past six months it has been getting better, but it still does not have the full range of capabilities and there are areas of work we cannot do.’

Despite claims that the whole DM centralisation programme was £10m under budget, costs have spiralled. Sources say the original software budget was £1m, but by last November more than £21m had been spent.

The department says it is confident this year’s target will be met.

‘We are pleased with the initial rollout of the software and it will provide significant long-term benefits,’ said a DWP spokesman.

The department has a patchy record. The Pension Service technology-enabled change programme was largely successful, but problems with Jobcentre Plus IT created huge backlogs and left some benefits claimants waiting two months for payments to start.

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