Sir Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, has said that the timetable for the government’s controversial universal credit benefits scheme was “too tight” and that a “culture of good news” in the Department for Work and Pensions prevented this being recognised.{jcomments on}
Making his valedictory speech on 25 September to an audience of senior civil servants and politicians at the Institute for Government, Kerslake, who stepped down in July as head of the civil service but stays on until the end of February 2015 as permanent secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government, said universal credit was “undeliverable” in the timetable originally set out by the DWP, but that this was not recognised in time by the department, because of a prevailing culture of deference within the civil service.
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