On Thursday 19 May from 10:00 – 11:30 techUK is delighted to be hosting DWP for a Universal Credit – Help To Claim virtual market engagement event. Attendees will hear from the Universal Credit Programme team, who will provide a high-level overview of the requirement, there will also be an opportunity for Question and Answer at the end of the session.
Background
The Department for Work and Pensions (‘DWP’) is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department, it administers a range of working age, pension age, disability and ill-health benefits to over 20 million claimants and customers.
DWP priorities include:
- Running an effective welfare system that enables people to achieve financial independence by providing assistance aimed at supporting them into employment;
- Creating a fair and affordable welfare system which improves the life chances of citizens;
- Delivering outstanding services to our customers and claimants; and
- Delivering efficiently: transforming the way we deliver our services to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
DWP currently provides grant funding to organisations to support people to make and maintain their Universal Credit (‘UC’) claim up until their first correct UC payment. For example, support to set up an email address; work though claimant's to-dos; access the UC phone service to make a claim; access DWO home-visiting support; help verify identity; help provide additional evidence; help access adaptations such as direct payments to landlords and conditionality easements; apply for advances and help to access other financial support; help prepare for first monthly payment; and signpost out to other provision and support.
The opportunity
DWP is looking at how best to fulfil these requirements in the future by considering their strategy and the capability of the marketplace.
The requirement has not yet been finalised, and DWP is hosting this pre-market engagement event to give potential delivery partners the opportunity to better understand DWP’s objectives and challenges, and for DWP to gain insight from the market about potential ways forward.
DWP wants to engage with potential delivery partners to establish interest and further understand how the support could be delivered, including an indication of realistic timescales for implementation, transition, and training, as well as indicative costs.
Some of the key considerations for delivery may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- The delivery model e.g. single national delivery, lot-based regional delivery, lot-based channel delivery.
- The channels for support e.g. telephony, digital, face-to-face.
- A grant versus commercial contract.
- A two-year delivery agreement.
At this stage it is not confirmed if DWP requires a single or multiple delivery partner(s) to deliver the different channels for support, however DWP would welcome and encourage feedback from potential delivery partners regarding partnership working/consortiums and building relationships with other organisations to provide wrap around support where necessary.
Further information
After the event, suppliers will be invited to complete a questionnaire, providing supporting information on a range of areas that will support DWP’s strategy. The supplier responses will be reviewed and where appropriate, suppliers may be invited to a 1-2-1 session to explore ideas and discuss further.
Book your place for this event now!
Please note this is NOT a Contract Notice or an Invitation to Tender for a contract opportunity - in the event that DWP wishes to progress with any procurement activity, a separate Contract Notice will be advertised on Contracts Finder and Find a Tender (FTS) websites.
Care will be taken not to provide any individual organisation or organisations with a competitive advantage at any stage in the pre-market engagement process.
Heather Cover-Kus
Heather Cover-Kus
Heather is Head of Central Government Programme at techUK, working to represent the supplier community of tech products and services to Central Government.
Prior to joining techUK in April 2022, Heather worked in the Economic Policy and Small States Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat. She led the organisation’s FinTech programme and worked to create an enabling environment for developing countries to take advantage of the socio-economic benefits of FinTech.
Before moving to the UK, Heather worked at the Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas and the Central Bank of The Bahamas.
Heather holds a Graduate Diploma in Law from BPP, a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from LSE, and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Macalester College.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-cover-kus-ba636538
Ellie Huckle
Ellie Huckle
Ellie joined techUK in March 2018 as a Programme Assistant to the Public Sector team and now works as a Programme Manager for the Central Government Programme.
The programme represents the supplier community of technology products and services in Central Government – in summary working to make Government a more informed buyer, increasing supplier visibility in order to improve their chances of supplying to Government Departments, and fostering better engagement between the public sector and industry. To find out more about what we do, how we do this and how you can get involved – make sure to get in touch!
Prior to joining techUK, Ellie completed Sixth Form in June 2015 and went on to work in Waitrose, moved on swiftly to walking dogs and finally, got an office job working for a small local business in North London, where she lives with her family and their two Bengal cats Kai and Nova.
When she isn’t working Ellie likes to spend time with her family and friends, her cats, and enjoys volunteering for diabetes charities. She has a keen interest in writing, escaping with a good book and expanding her knowledge watching far too many quiz shows!
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 020 7331 2015
- Twitter:
- @techUK,@techUK
- Website:
- www.techuk.org,www.techuk.org
- LinkedIn:
- https://bit.ly/3mtQ7Jx,https://bit.ly/3mtQ7Jx
Austin Earl
Austin Earl
Austin joined techUK’s Central Government team in March 2024 to launch a workstream within education and edtech.
With a career spanning technology, policy, media, events and comms, Austin has worked with technology communities, as well as policy leaders and practitioners in education, central and local government and the NHS.
Cutting his teeth working for Skills Matter, London’s developer community hub, Austin then moved to GovNet Communications where he launched Blockchain Live and the Cyber Security and Data Protection Summit. For the last 3 years he has worked with leaders in education across the state and independent schools sectors, from primary up to Higher education, with a strong research interest in technology and education management.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 07891 743 932
- Website:
- www.techuk.org
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-spencer-earl/
Annie Collings
Annie Collings
Annie joined techUK as the Programme Manager for Cyber Security and Central Government in September 2023.
Prior to joining techUK, Annie worked as an Account Manager at PLMR Healthcomms, a specialist healthcare agency providing public affairs support to a wide range of medical technology clients. Annie also spent time as an Intern in an MPs constituency office and as an Intern at the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed.
Annie graduated from Nottingham Trent University, where she was an active member of the lacrosse society.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Twitter:
- anniecollings24
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-collings-270150158/
