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Labour loves waste - they must because they make so much of it, especially when it comes to spending our taxes, but there's plenty more where that came from to why worry seems to be their attitude. Look at this catalogue of failed computer projects and then ask yourself whether or not these people are fit to organise the proverbial p*ss-up in the brewery.
Why government is not fit to manage IT projects
The prime causes are over-optimism, the need to make favourable announcements and incompetence.
Over-optimism in thinking that everything can be done if you throw enough money at it, which we all know is not true, and when it's someone else's money, taxpayers money, well it doesn't matter, there's plenty more where that came from.
Governments and in particular prime ministers, want and need to keep making favourable announcements regardless of whether they contain any germ of truth. It used to be called 'spin', we all recognised it and it hasn't gone away, it's the one thing you can rely on.
Finally incompetence. How can you expect a group of politicians who have not the faintest comprehension of IT projects to make decisions about complex spending plans? Our politicians will claim to have the best and most competent advisors and committees to help them, but time and time again we see the evidence that they don't listen but forge ahead with no thought.
£12.7bn National Programme for IT (Computers in the NHS)
Meant to revolutionise the way the health service worked. The National Programme for IT is now widely perceived as the greatest government IT white elephant of history. Suppliers have walked away despite the wheelbarrow loads of taxpayer money lavished on this grandiose scheme. Projects are running years behind schedule. Medical professionals complain that they were not asked what they wanted from the system.
Comment: Typical massive computer system imposed from 'on high' where no-one understands IT.
£7.1bn Defence Information Infrastructure
Dates from 2005, the MoD decided to replace all of its hundreds of different military computer systems used by the army, navy and air force plus the MoD itself with a single system. This behemoth was to be used by 300,000 people across 2,000 sites. It is now more than £180m over budget and 18 months late. A parliamentary inquiry concluded that forces' reliance on older systems put them at risk of a security breach.
Comment: Shows no understanding of the complexities and needs of different services, and makes the naive assumption that one size can be made to fit all.
£5bn National Identity Scheme
One of this labour Government’s highest profile failures. Originally set to cost £3 billion, this plan identity cards, containing biometric data such as fingerprints and iris scans was to be linked to a giant central database. Withering criticism from civil liberty campaigners led to it being watered-down and costs spiralled out of control to almost twice the original budget. Alan Johnson of the Home Office announced in July that the cards would no longer be compulsory. Attempts to force all airport workers to use the cards were abandoned.
Comment: Complete waste of time and money by a government incapable of keeping its own data confidential let alone that of the population in general.
£400m Magistrates' courts Libra system
To bring records used by magistrates courts into the digital age which totally backfired for the same reasons as the failed MoD system - ie it tried to apply one system to everything. When the system was first mooted the bidder quoted £146 million, but after 10 years of development costs have blossomed and are now estimated at almost 3 times the original.
Comment: After the MoD failure the lessons have hot been learned.
£350m Single Payment Scheme system (SPS)
£350 million spent yet the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons warned last year that it was already “at risk of becoming obsolete”. Designed in 2003 to pay farmers their subsidies by mapping their land and working out payments.By 2006 some£1.28 billion of the £1.5 billion (85%) of the subsidies for British farmers had not been paid. The Rural Payments Agency overseeing the project was ordered to make 23 major changes to the system.
Comment: A disaster for the farming community and all those who depend of farmers' spending for their living.
£300m GCHQ "box move" - simple removal from one building to another
GCHQ, the Government’s intelligence organisation wanted move its complex computer systems from an existing building to a new building in 1997, expected cots £41 million cost. Officials thought this was so small that it could be absorbed within the existing budget. This ludicrous assumption was of course wrong, and after six years of fiasco, in 2003, the National Audit Office (Nsiad the cost was over £300 million (7 times the original estimate). The Commons Public Accounts Committee chairman called the original budget “staggeringly inaccurate”.
Comment: If a government department thinks it can absorb £41 million in costs without special provision then that department has far too much money in the first place.
£155m National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis)
This lamentable failure can be laid firmly at the door of the Department for Justice which ordered the National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis) for the prisons and the probation service. By 2007 the estimated cost doubled to more than £600 million, at which point senior government officials could no longer see the point of the project. The £155 million that had already been spent spent was simply written off.
Comment: £155 million and NOTHING to show for it.
£141m Benefit Processing Replacement Programme (BPRP)
Described by the Department for Work and Pensions as a "key strategic initiative, which will provide modernised benefit processing to support DWP" the DWP scrapped this £141m core IT programme less than three months after giving an assurance to parliament that new funding for aspects of the scheme had been approved. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Philip Hammond said, "The decision making process on funding for the BPRP is very unclear. Serious lessons must be learned from this experience so that the government stops wasting taxpayers' money and starts delivering the improved public services these projects are designed to support." No information about this cancellation was released. Total waste of tax came to £141 million.
Comment: Hammond was too kind in his remarks.
£88.5m Prism IT project
In its own 2993/4 report the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said "In the FCO's long history of ineptly implemented IT initiatives, Prism is the most badly-designed, ill-considered one of the lot."
Prism was supposed to consolidate all systems operated by the FCO in 200 offices around the world, to handle finance, payroll, personnel and procurement systems. This disaster started in 2002, was halted then restarted. It has still not been delivered (early 2010).
Comment: When a government department as senior as the FCO describes its own conduct as inept and ill-considered what hope is there?
£81m Shared Services Centre
In an attempt to save £57 million (estimated and probably wildly so) the Department for Transport (DfT) attempted the Shared Services Centre.
The project was mismanaged such that Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said: "The DfT planned and implemented its shared corporate services project with stupendous incompetence. This is one of the worst cases of project management seen by this committee." and "Yet, despite the extent of mismanagement in this case, no individuals have been dismissed or been properly held to account."
Workers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) received messages from the system in German. It will now cost £81 million at the very least.
Comment: 'stupendous incompetence' says it all, not just this project but the whole labour government for the last 12 years.
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