Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress GovCoin, Barclays, RWE npower and University College London on behalf of the Department have made in developing technology that welfare claimants can easily adopt to handle their payments through a mobile app.

A small Proof of Concept was undertaken with DISC Holdings (formerly Govcoin) which included a budgeting app that could be used on a mobile phone. There are no plans to roll out any such pilot at scale. If claimants chose to use an account with a mobile app, as long as it has a standard account number and sort code, then they may do so. It is not within the DWP’s remit to promote one company’s product over another.

DWP has liaised with University College London regarding technological developments in this area. No formal projects were initiated as a result of this.

The Department continues to work with industry to understand how emerging technologies can be used to support claimants.