Outsourcing: DWP Telephone Services

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I am not aware of any penalties as such, but if a supplier consistently fails to achieve performance levels then service credits will apply to our most important Civil Service levels. These are designed to be an incentive to deliver services rather than a financial penalty. That is the way that we perform those services.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as set out in the register. Telephones aside, does my noble friend agree that there are real opportunities for DWP to deploy new technologies across all its activities? Is she aware of the proof of concept that the department ran of putting benefits in a tokenised form on a distributed ledger technology platform delivered through a smartphone device—cost out, empowerment in—for benefit recipients? Does she agree that it is time to run a pilot for that scheme and to run proofs of concept for new technologies right across all DWP’s activities?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is right that we need to look at new technologies. The DWP is always exploring new solutions to support citizens who use our services. The department will be using advice from the National Cyber Security Centre, which published a White Paper in April 2021 on the use of DLT suggesting that further developments are needed. For now, there are alternative technologies that usually provide comparable or better solutions.