By Nick Heath, 20 October 2008 16:17
NEWS
Almost £300m-worth of public sector IT projects have been binned in the UK, sparking accusations the government is embarking on the schemes without proper thought.
In a series of written answers to parliament, it was revealed that Whitehall has shelved £273m-worth of major IT schemes over the past five years.
The figure was condemned by Public Accounts Committee member Richard Bacon, who labelled it a "shocking reflection on the failure of the government to get the basics [of IT projects] right".
The £273m included:
- Department for Work and Pensions
£149.4m of projects were axed including £135m for the cancelled Benefits Processing Replacement Programme (BPRP) project handled by IBM and PA Consulting and £11.2m for the retirement planner being run by Accenture and EDS. - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
£26.2m spent on cancelled projects, including the £12.6m Catalyst electronic records system, the £9.6m Customer Information Programme and the £4m Phoenix system to handle licences for protected species. - Department for Transport
£9.2m spent on canned projects, including £7.9m on the DVLA's Tracking Vehicles Through the Trade system and the £853,899 DfT electronic documents and records management system. - Cabinet Office
£83m data centre scrapped and a managed hosting project called True North was also axed, following contract breaches. - Ministry of Justice
£4.3m spent on the National Enforcement Tracker System when it was cancelled in August 2007 after being judged to no longer be providing value for money. - Department for Communities and Local Government
£1.06m was spent on the Housing and Employment Mobility Services Agreement project by the time it was cancelled.
Several departments - including the Department of Health, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills - refused to reveal to parliament the value of cancelled projects, claiming it would involve "disproportionate cost".
The Public Accounts Committee's Bacon, a long-time critic of the NHS National Programme for IT, said: "That figure would fund...
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Comments
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1. Drew Stephenson
"People will be shocked..." actually, we're not shocked at all. In any industry if you start off a project badly and then keep changing your requirements you'll either end up delivering something useless or (fractionally better) cancelling it. If anyone can come up with an organisation more prone to starting projects on unsound (some would say tabloid-driven) bases and then continually sticking their fingers in than the government i'd like to know. Just so i can avoid working there in the future...
2. Karen Challinor
shocked?
not even mildly surprised, just saddened that you and I can't do anything about it despite the fact that these people are supposed to work for us and be accountable to us and ultimately answer to us
"but we can vote them out in an election" I hear people saying
yes we can and we can vote in clones who will make the same stupid decisions, waste the same resources and be as answerable as the ones they replace
we need a new system not new people
3. Richard
We need more Govt. IT projects axed:
How about this idea for a new TV "game show":
Contestants propose which government IT projects should be axed; Politicians have to defend their IT projects; viewers vote.
The revenue from phone charges replaces the (axed) TV Licence.
How long would the government's crazy & ruinously expensive ID Project last?
4. anonymous
And the law can't stop them !!