Spending watchdog mauls government IT procurement
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Outgoing head of Public Accounts Committee criticises government for poor planning and overspending on public sector IT systems
Poor planning and a lack of supplier engagement has resulted in government IT projects consistently being delivered late and over budget, according to the outgoing chairman of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee.
Edward Leigh MP, who is poised to leave the Whitehall spending watchdog, highlighted a lack of government engagement with suppliers before and during IT projects and a failure to identify and mitigate subsequent risks.
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In an open letter to his successor, he recalled the Ministry of Defence's £7 billion Defence Information Infrastructure project, in which EDS – now known as HP Enterprise Services – was responsible for providing replacements for hundreds of IT systems. Leigh claims that EDS, a vendor whose record of delivering government IT "has not been exemplary", planned the project poorly and underestimated its overall complexity, arriving more than two years late.
The Rural Payment Agency's £350 million IT system for the Single Payment Scheme also came in for austere criticism from the Tory party veteran, who described the data held as "riddled with errors" and the system itself "at risk of becoming obsolete".
"Reliable information is at the heart of efficient and effective government but, where this has been recognised, too often the response has been to buy a new IT system without planning what they need and allowing for adequate testing," Leigh wrote. "Time and again, departments have wasted millions on IT systems that fail to live up to promise, come in late and cost hugely more than forecast."
In February, a report published by IT analyst TechMarketView forecast that public sector IT spending will fall in 2010/2011 for the first time in a decade, regardless of which political party wins the upcoming general election.
