The government's flagship programme to shake up the benefits system is facing fresh problems in a battle between two departments at the heart of the scheme, documents leaked to the Guardian show.{jcomments on}
Friction between Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Cabinet Office overseen by Francis Maude is now causing "high-level" risks to the delivery of the project, according to minutes of a Whitehall meeting.
Maude's department, minutes of the government's universal credit board confirm, has also accelerated the pullout of its elite team of IT experts from the project after what sources describe as serious tensions over the progress of the £2.4bn overhaul.
The DWP is now urgently searching for new IT specialists to keep the complex software project on track. As a result, future implementation of universal credit could now face delays and increased costs because of the pullout, senior civil servants have been told, according to the minutes
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