GovCoin

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the GovCoin trial, and what plans the Department for Work and Pensions has in place for its large-scale rollout later this year.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, the initial independent assessment of the small-scale trial has been positive. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to work with industry to explore new and innovative products such as this that have the potential to support people with their personal budgeting and reduce the overall costs of welfare administration.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that initial findings offer real potential in this area, not least in greatly empowering the relationship between benefit recipient and the Government while at the same time realising significant savings for the taxpayer? To this end, will he urge colleagues in the department to push ahead with a full-scale trial to see whether we can deploy this technology—not only in the DWP but potentially across government?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I would not want to speak for the rest of government, although obviously I answer on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government on this occasion. Certainly, we want to look carefully at this particular trial. It was a very small trial, involving only some 20 to 30 people. It was more what I think is termed a proof of concept rather than a trial, but it produced encouraging results and we want to look at those in due course.