Government departments are failing to learn the lessons from previous failed IT projects and continuing to repeat the same mistakes, according to a report by MPs.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report, Achieving Value for Money in the Delivery of Public Services, says that despite the PAC's reviews of many high-profile IT failures over the last decade many departments still disregard common and well-publicised pitfalls when they approach projects.
Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the PAC, said in the report: "If one lesson stands out from the work of the PAC over the years, it is that government departments are masters at spending public money but often far less proficient at ensuring that this translates into better public services. Basic errors are repeated time and again."
The report covers all government spending but singles out IT as an area where departments have failed to learn from each other's experience, citing a decade of disastrous projects including the £1bn Pathway benefits card fiasco and the fraud-wracked Individual Learning Accounts system.
The PAC report highlights areas where government departments still need to improve including better planning and more realistic timetables and business cases, stronger project management and assessment of risk, and reduced complexity and bureaucracy.
But Leigh also admitted that a "great deal of progress" has been made in the last 10 years and cited the "valuable steps forward" taken by HM Customs in the use of new technology and the successful negotiation of improved prices for computer software for the public sector.
Leigh said there is still room for much improvement, however: "Given the scale of government spending, just a two percent improvement in the use of resources could generate savings of £8bn a year. That is the same as 2p off the basic rate of tax or could buy 15 large hospitals."
Talkback
I worked in public sector IT for the past 15 years, first in the NHS then in local government. I entered it as a mature graduate with alot of enthusiasm and passion for the opportunities and potential which IT presented for better communication and increased administration efficiencies, saving of taxpayers' money and more money for frontline services to those in need. All I have seen over the 15 years is mismanagement of projects and a scandalous waste of taxpayers' money on projects which were and are unrealistic, overambitious and whose aims or objectives appeared to be little understood by those supposed to be implementing them. In the first project I worked on, CRMS (Case Resource Management System) in the NHS, I saw financial and project control in the hands of a private consultancy company (still currently involved with public sector ICT projects at a high level). I witnessed this company use a masonic logo as the logo for an accountancy package which they offered to the hospital as a 'interim solution' when even 'phase one' objectives were clearly not going to be achieved. I had high hopes for what IT could do to improve services in the public sector but my eyes have been opened. Now, I don't believe that the government or the sector wants to learn from mistakes, it's on a roll with an agenda that maybe only masons are privy to. The recent SAP (Single Assessment Process) initiative was the last straw for me. When I voiced concerns which were to me, a legitimate part of the job I was supposed to be doing, my manager was told to 'keep me away from it' by the manager above him. I have since left such a futile and taxpayers' money-wasting 'career' and wouldn't wish to return to the public sector until such time, if ever, that masons are forced to declare membership of their private club. I see this as the real source of the problem with public sector IT 'failures'.
Having worked in a number of projects in government while being employed in an IT consultancy I believe I can be objective so far as there are two parties to blame. Firstly the consultants; It always amazes me how we hear stories of all the high profile failures and the high profile consultancies behind them, yet why do they still get the work ??. The very consultancies that go in to help improve work practices and controls have very little controls themselves. After all surely their specialised training would indentify issues on projects and bring them into perspective before major financial project losses ensue. Governance is a big word at the moment but key to all of this is Ownership, Common Sense and Accountability. Governance is about controls and good practice which is fine and I'm all for good practices but its useless without individual accountability.
Secondly, Civil service, they wear teflon coats, are untouchable, and are the unsackables. There are a lot of good people in these organisations but for the most part the Civil servants know that they just have to turn up and they have a job, regardless !
There needs to be more accountably and controls to ensure that poor performance is not rewarded and that nobody's job is safe should they fail to perform. Blaming an individual i.e. political representative is not the answer as is usuallly the case.
You might say that but Tony Blair got rid of fox hunting and wnats to axe some 900year old chamber for the lords. There is a reason why the civil service exists as it does.