Tom Loosemore: behind the scenes of the Universal Credit Reset

Jul 7, 2025

Tom Loosemore, founder of Public Digital and former civil servant, played a pivotal role in the Universal Credit reset. He reveals how the initial approach misdiagnosed Universal Credit as a tech issue instead of a complex one. Loosemore emphasizes the importance of adaptable teams and a clear vision, or 'North Star,' to navigate challenges. He shares insights about fostering psychological safety, maintaining political accountability, and the need for continuous user testing, all critical for successful digital transformation in government.

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INSIGHT

Why Universal Credit's Reset Succeeded Against All Odds

The key failure in the original Universal Credit rollout was treating it as solely a technology problem instead of a complex policy, operational, and design challenge. The Reset succeeded by creating a small, multidisciplinary team empowered to make decisions and focused on outcomes, especially how the system copes with change of circumstances rather than just initial claims.

Key elements included:

Clear ministerial outcome: “more people in more work more of the time” as the North Star.
Testing with actual users through innovative secondary legislation enabling a live trial with 100 claimants before scaling.
Leadership protecting the team from political interference while maintaining accountability.
Building adaptability into the culture to handle dozens of policy/technology changes daily during crisis times like COVID-19.

Tom Loosemore stresses that digital transformation in government requires humility about assumptions, an empowered team, continuous testing, and an outcomes focus rather than a delivery focus.

INSIGHT

Universal Credit: Not Just Tech Issue

Universal Credit was framed as a technology problem, but the real issue was the complex policy, operations, and design challenges.
Designing upfront without testing assumptions led to numerous failures in the initial system.

ANECDOTE

Consultants Under Pressure

When Tom first visited the Universal Credit tech team, he found a "sea of consultants" and that team members felt scared and overwhelmed.
The looming 2013 deadline created immense pressure, risking psychological safety for the contractors involved.

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Tom Loosemore of Public Digital was instrumental in the capital R Reset of Universal Credit.

In this interview, he tells Caroline there were no beanbags, but a lot of multi-D.

This interview adds nuance and richness to the picture sketched in our previous Universal Credit episodes. Some of the key insights include:

Fundamental problem of the original approach was thinking of Universal Credit as a technology challenge rather than a complex policy, operational, and design challenge
The first phase of system design suffered from incorrect data models, overly complex contracting arrangements, and thousands of untested assumptions
Reset team created a small, multidisciplinary team, outside main DWP building to establish psychological safety
Clear ministerial outcome statement ("more people in more work more of the time") provided crucial North Star
Testing real service with 100 users through creative use of secondary legislation before wider rollout
Radical shift was to understand that the core feature of Universal Credit was how to cope with change of circumstances, not signing on or signing off
Senior leaders like Neil Couling protected teams from political interference while maintaining ministerial accountability
Adaptable culture allowed 9-10 policy/technology changes daily during COVID crisis
Digital transformation requires outcomes focus, multidisciplinary teams, and continuous testing of assumptions
System proved sustainability by withstanding unprecedented change in both demand and policy over time

Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music.

'Til next time!