By Andy McCue, 22 June 2005 17:35
NEWS The MOT computerisation project, which aims to take a million illegal and dangerous cars off the road, will now not be fully rolled out to testing stations and garages until at least next March - nearly three years after it was due to be delivered.
The original date for the first MOT stations to be computerised was May 2002 but faults discovered during extensive testing led to repeated delays. The first garages finally went live with the system in April this year but the government has now admitted it will not reach all 18,500 MOT garages until the end of March next year at the earliest.
Transport Minister Dr Stephen Ladyman said: "There are currently 2,730 garages who have conducted tests using the new system. The rollout of the system to all remaining testing stations depends on continued satisfactory performance and is planned to be completed by 31 March, 2006."
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) awarded the 10-year £230m private finance initiative (PFI) computerisation contract to Siemens Business Services back in 2000. When fully rolled out garages and vehicle testing stations will use smart cards to send MOT details electronically by a secure internet connection directly to a central MOT database.
Cost overruns have also dogged development of the system and Vosa will now have to pay SBS £1.09 per test - up from £1.07 two years ago - at an additional cost of almost half a million pounds per year for the annual testing of the UK's 23.5 million cars. Vosa's capital expenditure on the scheme is also estimated to hit £30.5m by the time the system is rolled out to all testing stations.
But SBS has also hinted that more delays may be ahead because of a review of the activation processes, which is slowing down the rollout of the system to MOT garages.
Ian Tait, operations related services director at SBS, told silicon.com: "Siemens has the capacity to still achieve the end of the year date but as is the case with all of our client relationships, will only strive to achieve such a deadline if it does not compromise the quality of the service provided."
Tait said SBS' costs had increased under the terms of the PFI contract as a result of changes in requirement and legislation but he declined to comment on increases in Vosa's costs.
A statement from Vosa said: "There have been delays to the rollout of MOT computerisation. Vosa has worked with SBS to develop a robust system and by slowing down the rate of rollout we are ensuring that more time is given to each garage to activate it successfully."
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
I know one of the pilot garage owners on this scheme and listening to him it sounds like a complete disaster - he sometimes has to wait over two hours just to get the go ahead proceed with an MOT.
2. anonymous too
Yet another example of the Commercial greedy leading the Government blind & stupid. Do they never learn?
It would be nice, just for once, to read about a successful Government IT implementation.......... I'm just a romantic dreamer I guess.
3. Yes Thanks
Why Why Why....
Another messed up PFI deal. And the humble tax payer has to cough up over and again. I thought PFI deals were supposed to bring cost savings - why does this appear to not be the case - again !!
4. Joe Savon
Didn't this company make a cock up of the passport office computerisation?
5. David J Walker
So the Government's favourite IT supplier gets to rip us off AGAIN for yet another overpriced underperforming cost-plus piece of s*it that, by the time it gets even half-usable will be totally obselete and due for replacement anyway.
Nice work for some, isn't it? Wish I had customers that were so indulgent.
Makes you wonder how companies like eBay, Amazon, Google etc. cope, doesn't it?
6. Simon
So, here we are with a relatively trivial project with demonstrable safety benefits - and it's late, over budget, and from the sounds of it, not working all that well.
Doesn't bode well for the national identity register does it !
7. Simon Bazley
I'm lead to believe that the Government is a nightmare customer for moving goalposts after the specification has been approved.
The Government should learn that any supplier will love you to suddenly change the objective, because suddenly they no longer have to meet their deadlines and they can charge you a truckload more money.