Whitehall experts have criticised the decision of civil servants charged with monitoring the performance of half a trillion pounds worth of Government infrastructure projects to give the Coalition’s beleaguered Universal Credit programme a ‘reset’.
The news follows publication by the Cabinet Office’s Major Project Authority of its second annual report into 199 major national schemes with lifetime costs of £488bn.
According to the Red-Amber-Green (RAG) ratings assessing the preparedness of these large-scale infrastructure schemes, half of the 30 projects faced with the most significant challenges last year have improved.
The number of in-house civil servants reviewing these schemes has increased to 87% after concerted efforts to embed in-house skills, the MPA reported.
Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, said improvements to the running of major projects had helped saved £1.2bn in 2012/13.
‘All leaders of these projects will go to our new training school at the University of Oxford,’ Mr Maude added.
But Gavin Freeguard a researcher at the influential Whitehall think-tank the Institute for Government noted: ‘The proportion of projects receiving a positive green or amber/green has gone down this year, and those receiving a red or amber/red rating has gone up.’
He added: ‘One disappointing note is that DWP’s ‘resetting’ of the rating for Universal Credit means there is no information updating its amber/red rating of 2013.’
According to the report, the DWP are now £300m behind schedule on development of the Universal Credit programme - which is designed to amalgamate six separate benefit payments into a monthly benefit that can be managed by claimants online.
He said: ‘With around £500bn of public money expected to be spent on these projects, it’s vital that government continues to publish such realistic assessments so we can analyse what’s happening in more detail.’
Mr Freeguard said the improvement in many of the projects that were rated red or amber-red last year was encouraging, but said it was vital the government continued to publish realistic assessments.
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the ‘reset’ for Universal Credit was not new and referred to changes the department jad announced in 2013. The spokesman insisted it would not affect the roll-out of the single-payment welfare reform.