IT projects responsible for �11bn cost overruns

Tom Young, Computing, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 18:20:00

Better project management needed as budgets are squeezed, says TaxPayers'
Alliance

IT projects have contributed to more than �11bn of a total overspend of �19bn
in public sector capital spending projects by the government, according to a new
analysis from the TaxPayers' Alliance.

The biggest culprit was The National Programme for IT, which is forecast to
come in �10.3bn over budget, though only a fraction of this has actually been
spent as a result of restrictive initial contracts with suppliers and the slow
progress of the scheme.

A system to link and improve magistrates court systems known as Libra ran
over budget by �341m.

Another Ministry of Justice project which is to provide an end-to-end record
for those in prison and the probation service known as Nomis came in at �279m
over budget.

While the Department of Work and Pensions customer information system, which
holds benefit data on large swathes of the population cost �48m more than
forecast.

Next up was the Armed Forces joint personnel system, known as JPA, which ran
over budget by �24m.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive at the TaxPayers' Alliance said the
Government's record on handling large IT projects is shambolic.

"The NHS IT scheme has been mismanaged from start to finish, and the public
sector must do more to make sure that such overruns do not happen in future,"
he said.

"The state of the public finances means that it's more important than ever to
ensure value for money is achieved on IT capital projects."

IT projects should learn from the successes of capital spending projects
which prove that it is possible to come in on time and on budget, the report
says.

Fundamental to the success of any project is ?consistent leadership, strong
governance and close monitoring by a central project management team," it says.

The report notes that these attributes will become all the more important as
department as an imminent fiscal squeeze hits public sector budgets.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2253644/projects-responsible-11bn-cost