§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) when the contract to develop the Benefits Agency Customer Accounting and Payment Strategy IT system was awarded; and to which company or consortium; [92833]
(2) what the deadline is for completion of the Benefits Agency Customer Accounting and Payment Strategy IT system; 192835]
(3) what the estimated cost is of developing the Benefits Agency Customer Accounting and Payment Strategy system. [92834]
§ Angela EagleThe Customer Accounting and Payments Strategy (CAPS) is a continuing programme involving new systems and processes to create a single customer account in order to improve the way in which the Benefits Agency manages customer details and benefit payment information and, until the cancellation of the Payment Card element of the Horizon project, to support the payment of benefit by Card at post offices.
The systems to do this were built by the Department's Information Technology Services Agency including the integration of an accounting package purchased from IBM during the Spring of 1996.
Following the cancellation of the Payment Card and the announcement of the intention to pay benefits by Automated Credit Transfer, it will be necessary to reassess what further work should be undertaken on CAPS in addition to those elements that have already been implemented. Consequently no estimate of final completion dates or future development costs is presently available.
However, the work to create a single, consistent, source of customer details for use by all benefits is already well advanced. All the Benefits Agency major benefit systems are now linked to the CAPS systems and there are presently 17 million customer records held on the new system that is in daily and constant use by staff in the Benefits Agency. The work to complete the transfer of records is due to be completed in 2002.