Final bill for new benefits quango could soar over £190m, admits minister
THE cost of setting up a new Scottish benefits quango could soar beyond original projections, SNP ministers have admitted.
The Scottish Government has estimated that it will cost £190million to set up the IT systems for its new social security agency.
But Social Security Minister Jeane Freeman admitted yesterday that the cost is based on a series of ‘caveats’ and ‘assumptions’ and could rise.
It comes after it was announced this week that the new agency, which will cost around £150million a year to run, will be headquartered in Dundee with an office in Glasgow, while 1,500 jobs will be split between the two sites. After questioning by Tory MSP Adam Tomkins, Miss Freeman said: ‘Mr Tomkins will have read the financial memorandum in great detail, so he will know that the figure of £190million comes with a number of caveats, so that we are sure that we all understand what we are saying.
‘Those caveats detail the assumptions that were made in reaching the figure of £190million. Because we are building the new system chunk by chunk, we are determining the costs as we go, chunk by chunk.’
Miss Freeman said the estimate would be ‘refined’ later in the project but insisted the Government was approaching the issue ‘in a soundly based and robust way’.
The Government has previously come under fire for the soaring cost of the IT sys- tem used to deliver the botched farm payments system, which cost £178million.
At Holyrood yesterday, Lib Dem MSP Mike Rumbles said: ‘Will the minister assure us that her approach to the IT system that she outlined to Adam Tomkins is dramatically different from the approach taken by her colleague Fergus Ewing to the IT systems for agricultural payments?’
Miss Freeman responded: ‘My approach is – and I am sure that Mr Ewing’s approach was – to learn lessons from previous IT projects that work well and those that work less well in Scotland and at the UK level.’
Yesterday, Miss Freeman told MSPs the social security agency was expected to employ around 250 staff by summer 2019 to deliver the first three devolved benefits – the carers allowance supplement, best start grant and funeral expenses assistance.