By Andy McCue, 18 November 2004 12:15
NEWS IT supplier EDS' role in the "unacceptable" £456m Child Support Agency (CSA) IT fiasco is under further scrutiny following the resignation of CSA chief Doug Smith yesterday.
Smith quit following further criticism over problems with the delayed and over-budget £456m computer system implemented last year by EDS and the backlog of unpaid support payments to single parents.
Fresh reports today quote a leaked internal EDS memo that admits the CSA IT system was "badly designed, badly tested and badly implemented".
The rollout of the system was delayed by two years and since its introduction last March the CSA has had to write off £1bn in claims, while some £750m in child support payments from absent parents remains uncollected.
The system was branded an "appalling waste of public money" by MPs earlier this year, who called for it to be scrapped completely.
A recovery plan agreed with EDS was put in place by the CSA, but on resigning yesterday the agency's CEO Doug Smith said the plan has missed its targets and there is currently no date for when the old child support cases will be transferred onto the new system.
But Smith also denied the system has been a failure and said the situation is getting better.
Works and pensions minister Alan Johnson told MPs that no decision has been made on whether to ditch the CSA IT system but he admitted that it had not improved enough for the government to rule out the "nuclear option".
The government is currently withholding payments of £1m a month to EDS until the problems are fixed.
One of the key problems with the system is the transfer of CSA cases originally opened under the old payment method to the new one and almost three-quarters of a million cases are still stuck on the old system.
In the House of Commons yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted the situation was "unacceptable" while the Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy called for the CSA to be scrapped "as a matter of urgency" and its remit transferred to the Inland Revenue.
EDS was contacted but no-one was available for comment.
Comments
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1. Ian Morgan
Yet another successful EDS contract! How many more failed contracts before someone works out they shouldnt give them any more!
2. Biron Ghanizani
I am in the IT industry and for years have observed how the greatest technology has become the scapegoat for failures.
Computers are configured to do whatever is asked of them, providing you know what you are asking for and that it is possible for the system to generate the results.
Since inception, the CSA have done nothing for children, parents or society, on the other hand many in the legal profession, the courts, and other departments in the civil service linked to it have done very well indeed. It is grossly evil to tax already broken families by this burden in the name of helping children. I think the shadow conservative government should hold there hands up and admit that there invention to break the backs of broken families as finally imploded on it. This was a gender bias; class based and racially motivated conception. I know as I was involved in the debate relating to it merits before it became law.
3. James Button
Give me £456m and you can call me bad names too
4. anonymous
Good job it wasn't CSC then.
5. Mike Wood
EDS is a laughing stock when it comes to UK government contracts it has fouled up. Why the HMG insists on using them over and over again is a mystery to me and many other tax payers?
6. Charles Lancaster
I had heard that EDS had received more than 1000 change requests to the system. Perhaps CSA couldn't specify what they wanted?
7. anonymous
Didn't Arthur Andersen Auditing, as it was, get stopped from doing any government work, only recently lifted, due to incompetancy or illegality . Maybe EDS, CSC, ITNet, IBM etc need a 3 f*** ups and you are out. They all seem as bad as each other.
Back to in-house development anyone with people who know what they are doing and why they are doing it ?
8. anonymous
Wait until the financial account (BB) falls down, and it's on the verge now. I have visions of EDS sailing away on a boat with a hundred holes, success ahoy.. or is it an iceberg.
9. Martin J Smith
It usually doesn't have much to do with the supplier although the supplier should beware. Take a look at the history of large government IT contracts and you'll see a pattern. It's a lot to how government defines requirements, then constantly changes the requirements throughout the project. Plus these people are not private sector and don't know how to deal with the private sector...just look at the trains. Civil servants will always be civil servants...arch bureaucrats. They don't talk the same language as business people. I think the reform should be in how goverment works, setting a consistent accountable approach to working on projects with big suppliers like EDS or Fujitsu or Anderson etc.