The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is looking for an external provider of an assessment service and supporting IT for the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
The new benefit will be introduced in April 2013 and will replace the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for people of working age.
A notice in the Official Journal of the European Union says the detailed design of the supporting IT is under development and the extent to which the chosen PIP assessment service provider will need to provide IT services has not been finalised.
The DWP expects the supporting IT will allow a single customer view for all its client information. Features of the IT service will be the ability to share relevant client data, record and track client contacts and the progress of claims for the PIP.
“More detail will be provided during the procurement process and more information will be made available at the PQQ stage,” says the notice.
No separate estimate of the IT value of the contract has been published, but overall the deal is worth between £30m and £50m.
Initially the deal will run for three years, but could be extended for a further three years. It will be used by the DWP, its executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies sponsored by the department.
The DWP says that more than 3 million people in the UK claim the DLA, approximately 2 million of whom are of working age. It estimates the volume of PIP claims at 460,000.
This article is published by Guardian Professional. For updates on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.
