The UK Government's new Welfare System Project, which has recently drawn Negative Publicity from the Press (Research Paper Sample)

The UK Government's new Welfare System Project, which has recently drawn Negative Publicity from the Press [Name of Student] [Name of Institution] [Date] Executive Summary The Universal Credit Project has been proved to be a huge failure in many people's view due to the absence of a capable project management. Good project governance and project planning are the two key factors in the successful completion of any project and unfortunately the project of the Universal Credit has lacked these two factors severely. The advancement measures of any sort are completely absent in this project and there is a lack of senior advices and expertise as well as professionalism. Further the rollout of the project has been delayed several times by the management of the project. All such issues have damaged the credibility of the Universal Credit to an extreme level. The Universal Credit Project Board must have to try its best for removing all the weaknesses of the project and thus helping this project to revive. Introduction to the Report The project of Universal Credit has received a real bad and a pathetic publicity from the UK press. The new person in charge of the Universal Credit Project, Howard Shiplee has claimed in a news article on the APM website that the Project is facing a worst project management and a severe lack of openness and transparency. This report is being directed towards the Universal Credit Project Board and the key issues of bad project management and the absence of transparency have been raised in the report. The focus of this report is particularly upon the two basic areas of project management which are project governance and project planning. In the end some recommendations have also been provided to the Universal Credit Project Board regarding the refinement and the advancement of the project. Project Background Universal Credit is the UK Government's chief programme which sits in the middle of the Government's agenda of the welfare reform. The UK Government has planned to introduce this fresh, means- tested welfare project in the year 2013. This project is meant to serve the working age category of the United Kingdom. This project is intended to lessen the administrative load and cut few of the deceptions that are currently prevailing in the UK system. CITATION Gre13 \l 1033 (Accounts, 2013) Many contemporary in-and-out of work allowances will be replaced with a sole payment. The primary benefits like the JSA (job seekers allowance), ESA (employment and support allowance), IS (income support), housing benefits and tax credits will be absorbed in the Universal Credit CITATION Gre10 \l 1033 (Pensions, 2010). To be qualified for the Universal Credit, it is essential for a candidate that his age should be at least 18 years and he should not be in education; have embraced an applicant's commitment and should met financial state on an applicant's capital and income. CITATION Gre101 \l 1033 (Pensions, 2010) Discussion Project Governance Considering the project governance of the Universal Credit, it can be said very easily that this project is a huge example of the worst governance that can ever be seen in the history of the United Kingdom. The major setback of the management of the Universal Credit is that there are no sufficient measures of progression. The administration is completely incapable to explain the logic that can support the timescales or the usefulness of those timescales CITATION Pet13 \l 1033 (Dominiczak, 2013). The computer network possesses no ability to recognize potentially illegal claims; instead the project is solely relying upon the non- automotive checks CITATION Jas13 \l 1033 (Beattie, 2013). An investment of around 34 million pounds in the systems of information technology has been written off. The division responsible for handling the pension schemes and welfare severely lacks the senior guidance and expertise in information technology. The anticipated benefits resulting from the reform will reduce significantly due to the reschedules to the rollout CITATION Stu13 \l 1033 (Lauchlan, 2013). These all are examples of the substandard management of the project and a lack of clarity and transparency. The people who are governing the project are focusing a great deal on the fact that which areas of the project are performing well and they are completely ignoring the areas that are doing not so well from the beginning. There is an extreme deficiency of professionalism in the project team and a secrecy culture is present among the programme in charges CITATION Bry13 \l 1033 (Glick, 2013). All such problems have raised extensive concerns regarding the ability of department to tackle poor management of the programme, the over confident timescales and an absence of openness about the development. Project Planning The nationwide rollout of the project of Universal Credit has been delayed by the department. This project was planned to be launched in October, year 2013 for all of the fresh unemployed claims on a national basis. Instead, from October; the department had added an additional six pioneer sites. The department had also implemented the applicant commitment to each of the applicants of the Jobseeker's Allowance by April, year 2014. But it will not rely upon the initiation of the payments of Universal Credit. The timing of the complete rollout is being also been reconsidered by the department now. In order to fulfill the promise of completion of this project in the year 2017, the department must have to relocate a substantial volume of applicants inside a really short period of time CITATION Ric13 \l 1033 (Johnstone, 2013). The department yet has no idea that to what degree the new information technology systems of the project will assist the rollout at a national level. The pioneer systems of the Universal Credit possess restricted function and it does not permit applicants to alter the details of their situations online as initially intended CITATION Cha13 \l 1033 (Jee, 2013). The department possesses no decided plan as yet for the rollout at national level and the department is extremely unclear about the fact that to what extent the department will get along with the pioneer systems or it should have to substitute them. All such factors clearly indicate that the project of Universal Credit will not prove to be as cheap and simple to manage as it was intended initially CITATION Lau13 \l 1033 (Robertson, 2013). Conclusions and Recommendations The model of Universal Credit depicts a real progress upon the existing social system of security on a lot of counts. But the fact is undeniable that this model possesses a huge number of weaknesses. If the real aim of the Universal credit is to untangle the life for applicants then it clearly needs to identify that a lot of complexities will stay in the system and must take essential steps to confront them. Further it's the responsibility of the Government to make sure that the actual hurdles in the way of employment must be removed and awards are placed at adequate levels to provide a cushion to the applicants from destitution CITATION Sco13 \l 1033 (Scottsuhy, 2013). The recommendations that this report makes to the Universal Credit Project Board are that the second earner should be introduced overlook to make sure that the unemployed members of a pair possess the similar work indu...