Repay and manage benefit money  you owe (repay my debt) beta assessment report
Source: gov.uk (2025-12-06)

DWP's Repay and manage benefit money you owe (repay my debt) beta assessment report

Service Standard assessment report

Repay and manage benefit money you owe (repay my debt)

Previous assessment reports

Manage the money you owe (https://www.gov.uk/service-standard-reports/manage-the-money-you-owe-to-dwp-alpha-assessment)

Service description

This service aims to solve the problem of allowing citizens to view and manage benefit money they owe to DWP. These debts have usually been accrued by accepting an advance payment as part of a Universal Credit claim or because of error or fraud. Most users can:
- check how much they owe
- set up regular monthly payments or pay it off in full
- manage existing Direct Debit or flexible payment plans
- get help and support to make repayments
Service users

This service is for:
- customers who have been left with an outstanding Universal Credit advance and UC overpayments to repay and have come off benefit
- customers who have more than one outstanding debt to repay and have come off benefit
- customers who owe other money to DWP - for example Tax Credit or Social Fund debts - that are remaining after they come off benefit
- customers who are currently receiving benefits from Universal Credit • customers who owe money and have gone into recovery
Things the service team has done well:
- worked well with internal DWP teams to recruit niche user groups, specifically those claiming pension credits, and proxy users with access needs
- tested with users who have low digital skills, users who speak English as a second language, and users with dyscalculia
- demonstrated a good understanding of user needs and the barriers they may face when using the service and have used this insight to build a service that empowers users to manage their debt and payments to DWP. [Referring to users finding help/flexible payment options within the service instead of calling the helpline]
- collaborated outside of digital with the departments communications team who ‘own’ the letters. The improvements the team have made to letters issued by the service are a good example of this
- collaborated closely with the internal DWP Accessibility team, ensuring the service is fully WCAG 2.2 compliant, and their Accessibility statement is well managed and up-to-date
- responded well to recommendations from their mock Live assessment to conduct work to simplify the presentation of negative income for people who struggle with numbers, and specifically individuals with Dyscalculia
- developed a service with a cross-cutting nature meaning a citizen who owes money across several DWP services can view the entirety of their debt in one place
- signposted citizens to the relevant services, where they have benefit specific queries
1. Understand users and their needs

Decision

The service was rated green for point 1 of the Standard.

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- as the first DWP service to use GOV.UK One Login the team have done well to document their learning and design iterations, in their Knowledge Bank, to support the work of other teams looking to onboard in the future. The panel would encourage the team to share their findings more widely across the department
2. Solve a whole problem for users

Decision

The service was rated amber for point 2 of the Standard.

During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- a joined-up view of the full user journey; from getting into debt through the various touchpoints of the service to finally paying off what was owed. This includes the relationship between the service and Universal Credit, other benefit lines like Carer’s Allowance and Employment Support Allowance, or indeed other government departments, like HMRC
- a fully formed problem statement. The team presented a summary description of the service and future vision, however a well-formed problem statement helps to position the service with the wider landscape of what the user is trying to achieve. The panel recommends the team revisit the problem statement. Some references the team might find useful are The actual problem to be solved and How to write a problem statement
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels

Decision

The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.

During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- the service team can learn from operational teams about how the service is working as volumes increase, with a view to making improvements for citizens and agents
Decision

The service was rated amber for point 4 of the Standard.

During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- a full understanding of ‘Customer Satisfaction’, one of the four Service Standard mandatory key performance indicators in Data you must publish, is concerning at 25%. It wasn’t clear from the presentation whether this was due to the undesirable nature of managing and paying off debt, which in some cases may be unintentionally accrued, or that a need was being unmet by the service. Additionally, the Customer Satisfaction data does not correlate with the positive feedback the team documented in user testing. The panel recommends the team investigates, targeted at understanding why the Customer Satisfaction is low as both a key indicator to improving the service and to identify any unmet needs
- a review of the use of secondary buttons on the account home. Guidance on the GOV.UK Design System for the Button Component states, Pages with too many calls to action make it hard for users to know what to do next. Before adding lots of secondary buttons, try to simplify the page or break the content down across multiple pages. With five buttons on this page, consider using the Links style
- a review of the use of the Inset text component for important information like You cannot set up a Direct Debit between the 29th and 31st of the month on the What day of the month do you want your Direct Debit to be taken? page, and Your bank may charge you interest if you pay by credit card. on the Summary page. Both statements are important and meet the definition for Warning text
- consideration of programmatically handling the backend requirement for two-digit day of the month on the ‘What day of the month do you want your Direct Debit to be taken?’ page, as opposed to asking the users to prefix single digits with a zero
5. Make sure everyone can use the service

Decision

The service was rated amber for point 5 of the Standard.

During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- the user need or further plans to move citizens to digital ID verification. The use of GOV.UK One Login shows an improvement on the previous OIDV identity verification solution, however 13% of users of the service is low compared to the 87% of citizens using the access code option. Further, some people will not be able to use GOV.UK One Login, it wasn’t clear how this would be handled in the future, whether the access code would remain for those users, or if an alternative route was planned
- the requirement to login as opposed to using an access code and what was driving that
6. Have a multidisciplinary team

Decision

The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard.

7. Use agile ways of working

Decision

The service was rated green for point 7 of the Standard.

8. Iterate and improve frequently

Decision

The service was rated green for point 8 of the Standard.

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- during the assessment it was noted by both the team and the panel that introduction of One Login has generated service access issues for some users. The user researcher stated that they would be focusing on this in forthcoming UR rounds, and we agree that this needs to be prioritised
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy

Decision

The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- complete DPIA regularly
- plan for a regular IT Health Check and Security Risk Assessment
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data

Decision

The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.

11. Choose the right tools and technology

Decision

The service was rated amber for point 11 of the Standard.

During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- a finalised roadmap for Legacy Debt system (DM5) to be moved to the Cloud
- a plan and next steps for the transition from legacy to new system
12. Make new source code open

Decision

The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- the team should investigate publishing the code in the open and not just the internal/ private GitHub
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns

Decision

The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard.

14. Operate a reliable service

Decision

The service was rated amber for point 14 of the Standard.

During the assessment, we didn’t see evidence of:
- the move to a cloud-based environment from the current on premises location
- a plan to address this as part of the amber tracking
Next Steps

This service can now move into a live phase, subject to addressing the points of the Standard that are rated amber within three months time and CDDO spend approval.

The team should repeat the development phases (discovery, alpha, beta and live) for smaller pieces of work as the service continues running, following spend control processes as necessary.