Government IT projects 'running 17 years late'

The Treasury has responded to accusations that its IT projects are running a total of 17 years and three months late

Delayed projects include the Child Trust Fund (six months late) and the Pension Schemes project (one year behind schedule), according to a list compiled by the Liberal Democrats.

Other delays affect implementation of BS7799 compliance for information security in the Government's Actuary department, which is over three years behind schedule, and eContact Exploitation, which is expected to be five months late.

The list was compiled after the financial secretary for the Treasury, John Healy, answered a question on IT projects from Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor Dr Vincent Cable by referring him to the House of Commons library.

A spokesperson for the Treasury told GC News on 13 October 2006: "The list holds around 80 projects and 70 percent of those are on time.

"Simply adding a list in this way without taking account of the various sizes and priorities of the projects massively oversimplifies the delivery of vital public services.

"The Tories and Lib Dem methodology is nonsense and ignores the huge benefits that are being accrued from embracing IT."

Cable said: "With the Treasury, who are allegedly the guardian of government efficiency programmes, finding it so difficult to keep IT projects on schedule, it would be utter madness to go ahead with further large IT projects such as the ID cards."

Theresa Villiers, Conservative shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, commented: "These latest figures demonstrate just how Gordon Brown has managed to spend so much and achieve so little. If he can't run an IT project, how's he going to run the country?"