Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions is facing "meltdown" over three of its biggest projects, Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Commons public spending watchdog, has said.{jcomments on}
Ahead of a damning report on government contracts with private firms, Hodge singled out the DWP as a department particularly struggling with the delivery of welfare changes, which involve managing a relationship with private IT contractors, back-to-work providers and benefit assessors.
The public accounts committee report turns up the pressure on ministers to allow all government contracts to be subject to freedom of information (FOI) laws and examined by the National Audit Office (NAO).
Given that half of all spending on public services now ends up in the hands of private providers, departments must stop hiding behind "commercial confidentiality" when people want to know more about how these contracts work, it said.
"Time and again when we see failures ... it's a failure of government to manage contracts," Hodge said, adding that departments "simply have to up their game and get a grip".
The committee said the DWP is particularly bad when it comes to private firms' involvement in public services, including Universal Credit, its new IT system that will deliver an overhaul of benefits, the Work Programme, its back-to-work scheme, and the personal independence payment (PIP), the replacement for disability living allowance.
"All their programmes are on the verge of meltdown," she said at a briefing to launch the report.
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