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By Sarah Left, 12 November 1999 00:35

NEWS The Home Office is running 125 months late and £50m over budget on its combined IT projects. This latest admission of IT troubles highlights expensive delays in 13 out of 17 projects. The Liberal Democrat home affairs secretary, Simon Hughes, obtained the information through a written question he posed to the Home Office. Hughes has branded the resulting costs and disruption to the public as "disgraceful". The Passport Agency, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, and the Probation Service are singled-out for particular concern. Steve Bradford, home affairs researcher for the Liberal Democrats, said there are three main reasons the government has such high-profile IT failures: problems with the private contractor, over-ambitious projects, and lack of experience by civil servants in IT. But Derek Hardman, the director of business development for ICL's government business, said the government is trying to turn the situation around. He noted that the Central IT Unit (CITU) has appointed a civil servant to look into IT problems over a two-year period to find out where government is going wrong. "Government projects are by nature large, and large means complex," explained Hardman. "Also, the timescale involved is huge. You can be diligently working to a contracted baseline, and by the time you finish the business has changed." He added: "Over a three-year contract, the technology can refresh twice." According to Bradford, the Liberal Democrats are now asking the same question of all major departments, particularly Health, Education, the DTI and the Treasury.