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By Steve Ranger, 19 December 2005 16:26

NEWS

From mega-contracts to open source and ID cards, Steve Ranger looks back at the highlights of the year for public sector IT and makes some predictions for what to expect in 2006.

The year started well, with the United Nations ranking the UK's e-government strategy third best in the world.

And government ministers started the year in bullish mood too, insisting that local councils would get all their services online before the end of the year - and save through better use of IT in the longer term.

Spending on IT in the public sector certainly started off strongly as well, with £2bn in NHS contracts being dished out to happy suppliers early in the year. And just a month later one of the biggest outsourcing deals in government got signed off, with EDS and friends winning the 10-year £4bn Ministry of Defence (MoD) Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) contract.

But those cheers were soon replaced with grumbles when it was revealed the government has held back £13.3m in payments to EDS over the past two years amid continuing problems with new computer systems at the Child Support Agency.

And by April it seemed that the usual standard of government IT projects had been restored when it was revealed that a new computer system for MI5 would cost at least 50 per cent more than originally planned - and will deliver less functionality.

So it was perhaps no surprise that by June it was known that more than a quarter of government technology projects have hit a "red light" during the review process, which is aimed at cutting IT project failures. A report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warned that government agencies don't take the review process seriously enough.

Getting these reviews right could be the key to stopping big IT disasters down the line, so in 2006 it would be good to see the government getting tough with agencies that don't put in the work. Still, it's likely we'll see lots more projects hit red lights next year.

Also in June, the Inland Revenue was threatening to drag EDS through the courts unless compensation was forthcoming over the problems with the new tax credit IT system, which led to overpayments to 455,000 households.

The dispute continued to rumble on through the summer, and finally in November EDS actually coughed up £71m.

In June, rather optimistically - or so it seemed at the time - the government kicked off the hunt for the supplier to provide technology for the 2012 Olympic Games.

And when it was announced that London had indeed won the Olympic bid, amid the celebrations there was also a call for 2,000 techie volunteers to help run the systems when the games are on.

High-tech traffic systems also grabbed a lot of headlines this year.

Poor decisions about IT investments have left motorists stuck in traffic jams, according to a PAC report in June.

And, as if by magic, the very next month work began on a £15m project to install 43 high-tech motorway message signs on the M3 and the M4.

This was swiftly followed by a project to allow speeding drivers to see photo evidence of their offences on the internet.

silicon.com even sent out roving reporter Dan Ilett to spend a day with the Highways Agency to see how their new traffic control centre operates. See the photos of what he discovered here.

By November, police forces were using automatic number plate recognition cameras to spot cars being driven without insurance.

And by the end of the year, satellite tracking and road pricing were back on the agenda with the government handing out £7m to local authorities to fuel test projects.

Road pricing is likely to be one of the biggest IT projects of the next decade, and more details of government plans - and the inevitable opposition from motorists - will surface next year.

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