Issue(s) Improving operations and programme delivery Managing major projects Commercial capability and contract management Fraud, error and debt management Parent department Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) Related documents Welfare reform - lessons learned (May 2015) Universal Credit - Progress update (Nov 2014) Housing Benefit fraud and error (Oct 2014) The Work Programme (Jul 2014) | Our 2015 work on welfare reform brought together our existing knowledge of early implementation from recent Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) reform programmes. It identified lessons learnt for individual programmes and highlighted the challenges for the DWP in introducing a wide range of reforms concurrently. Our previous work examined several reforms. In 2014, we reported on the progress of Personal Independence Payments, the child maintenance 2012 scheme, the Work Programme and Universal Credit. We also considered fraud and error in Housing Benefit, for which the DWP has already introduced several reforms and plans to align these with Universal Credit for working age claimants. | Impact: Partly in response to our work, the DWP took steps to improve financial monitoring and controls within major programmes; worked with HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office to update its business case for Universal Credit; and improved its management of contracts with suppliers. It has put in place processes to share good practices from programmes such as the child maintenance 2012 scheme and is reorganising the way it manages its portfolio of change programmes.
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