Gov blasted over budget-bloating IT projects

The Liberal Democrats have blasted the government for overspending on IT projects by more than £1bn in the last five years.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has gone the furthest over budget, overspending by £785m. According to the Liberals, Defra is the department with the least control over its budgets, with IT projects 46.3 per cent over budget - an overspend of £62.4m.

Lib Dem shadow environment secretary, Chris Huhne, said the government "must get a grip on its finances".

He added: "Government IT projects have long been the laughing stock of the private sector but this billion-pound overspend is beyond a joke."

However, the Cabinet Office downplayed the news, saying it spent £12.4bn per year on IT projects and adding that £1bn over five years is a small percentage of the total. It said the military IT overspend was mainly due to a change in specifications for one project. The MoD had originally budgeted for two satellites but had then ordered two more, at a cost of £885m.

The Liberal Democrats said the Home Office had overspent on IT projects by £18.2m. The Home Office could not provide a breakdown of individual project costs as this data "is not held centrally and could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost".

The government provided the figures in response to parliamentary questions from Huhne.

The Liberal Democrats also severely criticised the estimated government spend on its controversial ID cards scheme, claiming the projected costs had risen by £640m since last October. The Liberals compared two reports into the estimated costs of the scheme - one published in October, the second published last week.

However, the Home Office rebutted this claim, saying the Liberal Democrats had compared the wrong sets of figures.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The costs report published [last week] shows an actual increase of £40m per annum over 10 years - of which 70 per cent will in any case be spent on passports. As the report sets out, the updated figures take into account extra staff to boost counter-fraud measures as the scheme is implemented."

The Home Office said the scheme will be funded through fee income, at a cost of £5.7bn to individuals and businesses over the 10 year period.

The Home Office denied it had deliberately delayed publishing the report until Prime Minister Tony Blair's resignation announcement, and said parliament had been in recess on 9 April.

The spokesman said: "We put the report out the next possible time we could. The latest report was a few weeks late in being published. We will not confirm or deny breaking the law."

Parliament was in Easter recess from 29 March to 16 April.

Tom Espiner writes for ZDNet UK