DWP complete their Virtual Machine Environment Replacement Programme
Driving digital transformation
The Virtual Machine Environment Replacement (VME-R) project replaced aging legacy infrastructure necessary to enable future welfare policy changes to be implemented. This complex and intensive programme has seen DWP rebuild technology, some of which was more than 40 years old, which supports its core benefit payment systems, part of the National Critical Infrastructure, onto more modern, secure and performant platforms.
In total 11 critical benefit systems were replaced with zero disruption to DWP’s benefit operations or delays to citizen payments. The largest 4 of these systems were replaced in the middle of the global pandemic, as DWP Digital rose to the challenge amid remote working and lockdowns. The applications pay out more than £150 billion a year to millions of UK citizens.
The project was a DWP ‘in-house’ exercise between the DWP Digital and Service Planning and Delivery Change Delivery teams, and created opportunity for DWP to further move away from outsourced IT services, towards a fully in-sourced digital organisation. This really was a chance for DWP Digital staff to build capability, learn new skills and own their careers as the programme progressed.
Replacing JSA the largest benefit system
Over Easter 2020, the VME-R project replaced Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), the department’s largest benefit system, remotely and at pace. Replacing the old service was particularly critical at this time as demand on the JSA system rocketed to unprecedented levels due to the Covid-19 economic impact.
The JSA payment system was introduced in the 1990s, based on an IT code set designed in the 1960s. As new technical and policy requirements changed, code was added over the years.
The replacement was the culmination of 2 years of planning. In the response to the benefit claim surge the established delivery plans were reviewed, uplifting the new service capability. Additional technical changes were defined, requiring increase in user capacity and assurances to achieve the system migration in a reduced window to support the extended operational working hours during the pandemic. The emphasis was to increase functionality and scalability to support around 1 million additional Jobseeker’s Allowance claims and support thousands of new operational staff.
Working remotely, and throughout nights and weekends, the service was fully commissioned for operational activity, 24 hours ahead of schedule. The team was awarded the Project Delivery Excellence, Civil Service Award 2020, for achieving this migration.
- System capacity was increased to allow 3,000 additional processing staff respond to the Jobseekers Allowance claim surge
- Record timing for data migration of 6.2 billion citizen records delivered in under 24hrs
- Overnight IT ‘batch’ processing time reduced from 5 to 1 hrs offering longer operational working days.
Peter Schofield DWP Permanent Secretary said: “This is an amazing milestone that makes a massive difference to delivery of JSA and ESA. Success is down to huge amounts of preparation, expertise and hard work, and I am proud of what it means for DWP.”
Significant system migrations
Other applications migrated during the pandemic were the Disability Living Allowance System in August 2020, which successfully incorporated the Scottish Devolution changes into the solution code. Income Support and Pension Strategy Computer System State Pensions Service were the 2 last applications to be replaced in January 2021, completing the VME-R programme. Overall the VME-R project replaced 11 benefit systems.
VMER Programme background and context
These legacy systems were developed originally back in 1980s, based on old ICL VME mainframes and COBOL application code. Each service had an ‘online’ service 7am to 7pm and an overnight ‘batch’ processing service approximately from 8pm to 4am.
The mandate was to provide a ‘like for like’ replacement of infrastructure and Benefit Application code, with no change to its operational users or citizens but it provided so much more.
Working with Advanced, DWP has migrated over 5 million lines of benefit application code, and its ‘batch processing’ timings are now 50-60% quicker than old VME and with dramatically reduced IT support interventions required. DWP Digital is now able to implement ‘business change’ and upgrade releases during ‘mid-week’ for the first time, already having delivered over 800 releases across the VME-R platform in last 12 months. DWP Digital have adopted automated DevOps deployment tooling and adopted AWS developments environments.
Snapshot of how we’re making an impact
- Largest migration off ICL/VME ever undertaken globally
- 11 applications replaced with zero business disruption or delay to a single citizen payment
- 26 million lines of code converted
- 10.5 billion rows of data migrated onto a modern Oracle Database
- 6.3 billion rows of data migrated in 23 hours for JSA
- JSA payment processing running 50-60% faster (other systems up to 90% quicker)
We’re pushing the digital agenda by delivering some of the largest tech projects in UK/Europe. To find out more, subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with everything DWP Digital.
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.
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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!
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Annie Collings
Annie Collings
Annie is the Programme Manager for Cyber Resilience at techUK. She first joined as the Programme Manager for Cyber Security and Central Government in September 2023.
In her role, Annie supports the Cyber Security SME Forum, engaging regularly with key government and industry stakeholders to advance the growth and development of SMEs in the cyber sector. Annie also coordinates events, engages with policy makers and represents techUK at a number of cyber security events.
Before joining techUK, Annie was an Account Manager at a specialist healthcare agency, where she provided public affairs support to a wide range of medical technology clients. She also gained experience as an intern in both an MP’s constituency office and with the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed. Annie holds a degree in International Relations from Nottingham Trent University.
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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.
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Ella Gago-Brookes
Ella Gago-Brookes
Ella joined techUK in November 2023 as a Markets Team Assistant, supporting the Justice and Emergency Services, Central Government and Financial Services Programmes.
Before joining the team, she was working at the Magistrates' Courts in legal administration and graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2022. Ella attained an undergraduate degree in History and Politics, and a master's degree in International Relations and Security Studies, with a particular interest in studying asylum rights and gendered violence.
In her spare time she enjoys going to the gym, watching true crime documentaries, travelling, and making her best attempts to become a better cook.
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