We asked the Department how it would manage the delivery of the Programme and about the testing it was undertaking of the new service. We also asked, if the testing was not sufficient to provide the data it needed, whether it would continue with roll-out of the new service or delay it. The Department recognised it may not be able to deliver all the transformation it wants to before letting the contracts to deliver the service from 2029. It said that it “was being very clear within the Programme on what needs to be ready, what quality needs to be like, what sort of service we are providing … and we will not continue 6 Qq 1, 25, 45 7 Q 1 8 Q 13 9 Qq 33, 45, 76; C&AG’s Report, para 2.15 10 Q 5, C&AG’s Report, paras 2.15–2.16 11 Q 45; Department for Work & Pensions, Health Transformation Programme evaluation strategy, 25 May 2023 Revising health assessments for disability benefits 11 to expand the service unless it is safe to do so and meets our exit criteria”.12 It explained that it will only let the new contracts based on what it is confident that it can deliver, even if that meant that those contracts would include less of the transformational benefits it currently envisaged from the new service. It told us that the rate at which it rolled out the Programme would be determined by how successfully it made progress.13