Unisys and Central Government

In 2003 the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) started a process of identifying ‘National Products’ that could help to deliver proven efficiencies in Housing Benefit processes and administration. 

South Gloucestershire Council, Unisys and CACI working in partnership presented a business case to the DWP to support the implementation of proven technology to automate benefit claim processing.

The new system reads hand-written forms, extracts all relevant data, stores this within the relevant database (depending on the benefit) and drives payment automatically.

The DWP expects this new approach to cut costs, greatly reduce the need to do things twice (because of mistakes in the system) and will also improve service to customers.

In the first stage of the project, 30 local authorities are involved in an extended pilot.

It is hoped that many more of the 1200 local authorities in the UK will eventually take part in the scheme, pioneering the kind of large-scale “shared services” approach that may well be at the heart of government’s reforming agenda for raising standards and cutting costs in service delivery.