It is not as if the system is good and reliable, the DWP system is not functioning at the best of times, but like many governments, the UK wants to bring in even more digital functionality.

The department has started recruiting a new chief technology officer (CTO) who is going to oversea a more than £1 billion of annual IT spend.

The £135,000-a-year job is described by the department as 'one of the most challenging and rewarding technology roles in the UK today'.

Interested candidates have until January 26 to apply, with final panel interviews due to be conducted during the week beginning March 24.

The department is partway through a digital transformation programme to make its services more customer-centric, develop new services at a faster pace and significantly cut the costs of delivery.

But the biggest problem is that the DWP needs an architecture genius and needs a candidate with a "track record of transitioning a large enterprise from ageing mainframe technologies to next generation web, social, mobile cloud, Big Data and deep learning technologies".