The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has completed the migration of the Jobseeker’s Allowance Payment System (JSAPS) to a new platform.
It has carried out the change with the Application Modernisation practice of IT services organisation Advanced, in what the latter described as the largest and most complex service of the department’s application legacy modernisation programme.
The changes involved converting, loading and verifying 54 databases containing 6.3 billion records for a new relational database management system in under 24 hours.
Advanced said it was done in time to support the surge in applications for jobseeker’s allowance due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It added that applications are now running 50% faster, with more than 50,000 end users on the platform.
Mark Bell, deputy director VME replacement at DWP, said: “The re-platformed system provides the DWP and its citizens with a faster and more responsive service with improved resilience and scalability.
“This has been widely recognised as one of the best technical achievements delivered by DWP Digital for many years and as ground breaking against wider industry standards. It also enables us to make further digital enhancements to benefit millions of UK citizens.”
Three more
DWP is set to follow up with the re-platforming of the three remaining legacy applications, for state pension services, disability living allowance and income support.
The programme is aimed at modernising digital platforms on which legacy applications have been running for decades. JSAPS was introduced in the late 1990s to support jobseeker’s allowance, based on an IT code set that had been designed in the 1960s.
