Sunak: we cannot raise benefits now because of ‘complicated’ IT

RISHI SUNAK has blamed a “complicated” IT system for not raising welfare benefits immediately to shield the most vulnerable from the cost of living crisis. The Treasury this week downplayed a suggestion made by Boris Johnson that further help would be made available within days, and some Tory MPS have privately argued it may be needed before the summer.

Mr Sunak admitted in an interview with Bloomberg TV that his answer when asked about further benefits support “sounds like an excuse” but insisted he had been “constrained somewhat by the operation of the welfare system”. “The operation of our welfare system is technically complicated. It is not necessarily possible to [increase benefits] for everybody. Many of the systems are built so it can only be done once a year, and the decision was taken quite a while ago,” he said.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) told Bloomberg that benefits programmes involved “complex and inefficient paper-based systems that are slowed further by ageing, inflexible IT”, with changes taking “several months to process”.

In January, a report by the public accounts committee warned some of the systems used by the Department for Work and Pensions had been “unfit for purpose” for decades.

MPS on the committee said millions of pensioner records were kept on an IT system that not only dated back to 1988, but was also “intrinsically vulnerable” to errors.

Simon Mckinnon, the top technologist at the DWP, said in committee evidence in 2019 that it would take “many years” to move away from the decadesold technology systems.

He added that the state pension was “run through a 30-year-old system”, with so-called legacy systems “very critical to what we deliver”.

In his Spring Statement in March, Mr Sunak announced changes to National Insurance, fuel duty cuts and £500million for councils to help vulnerable people mitigate rising costs. He previously set out a £9 billion plan, covering around 28 million Britons, in the wake of the soaring cost of energy, food and fuel.