Failed IT projects cost Britain a packet

The importance of correct project management has been brought to the fore with the spectacular revelation that mismanaged IT projects initiated by the Labour government have cost the British taxpayer more than £26bn.

According an editorial in The Independent, the cost of the 10 worst IT failures amounts to at least half of the 2009 budget for schools.

"Stupendous incompetence" was blamed in Parliament for these "fundamentally flawed" projects.

The most costly programme was the failed attempt to transform the National Health Service (NHS) with IT. A colossal £12.7bn later, only 160 organisations out of 9000 are actually using the electronic patient records the project was meant to deliver.

Other projects that have brought shame to the British government include:

* a Department for Transport cost-saving exercise intended to save £57m that cost £81m (among other problems, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency workers received messages from computer systems in German).

* An IT-based farm subsidy scheme, already "at risk of becoming obsolete", that cost the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs some £350m, with British farmers footing a bill of over £1bn.

* the National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis) was abandoned after the Department of Justice had spent £155m

* The highly complex MoD Defence Information Infrastructure project, currently £180m over budget, 18 months late, and set to cost £7.1bn, was revealed to have had "no proper pilot" and "entirely inadequate research.

Silver-tongued suppliers -- and IT consultants -- are blamed for hoodwinking gullible ministers with unrealistic claims before contracts were awarded.

IT expert Tony Collins is quoted as saying that "There are too few people in the hierarchy of Labour who understand IT enough to understand that it is not a talisman – there is nothing magical about it."

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