The Government has been accused of hampering an inquiry by MPs into the new Universal Credit benefit system, which found that tens of millions of pounds had been wasted.
The Work and Pensions Select Committee said there was worrying uncertainty over the computer system used to bring in the single payment for people looking for work or on a low income.
Universal Credit will replace six benefits, including jobseeker's allowance, income support, child tax credit and housing benefit. A UK roll-out has been delayed.
The committee said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) needed to be clear about the implications of the delays and called for revised estimates of costs.
Computer problems meant that £40 million spent on software has had to be written off because it is of no further use, and a further £90m has been spent on IT with a useful life of only five years, said the committee.
The IT problems were only revealed by a National Audit Office report last September, but the Government had known about them for at least 18 months, said the MPs.
"The Government has hampered the committee's scrutiny of UC implementation by not providing accurate, timely and detailed information," said the report.
Committee chairwoman Anne Begg MP said the lack of transparency was unnaceptable, adding: "We expect to have access to the information we need to scrutinise [the Universal Credit system] effectively.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article