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Government IT Projects - the punch line

Posted April 4th, 2006 by Tom
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Chicken Yoghurt has been busily amassing evidence of expensive Government IT cockups and I was amused by  this one

The best bit? The contract to oversee the system has been taken away from Accenture and given to Capgemini of Foreign Office Prism cock-up fame.

Before you start feeling sorry for Accenture (who also have the Rural Payments Agency wreck notched on their bedposts) - Charlie 'I Got a Peerage For Being Tony's Flatmate' Falconer's DCA recently relieved Fujitsu of the Libra magistrates court IT system and handed it to Accenture. Would it surprise any of you to read this about the original ICL/Fujitsu deal, from the Public Accounts Committee in 2003?:

01. This is one of the worst PFI deals that we have seen. The Department procured a contract to provide services to 42 Magistrates' Courts Committees over which it did not have real authority or control. It ran a poor competition, attracting only one bidder, and it failed to take decisive action when ICL did not deliver what was required. For its part, ICL did not understand the Department's requirements, took on excessive risk and underpriced its bid. It performed poorly throughout and could not meet the target dates for delivery of the core application. As a result of these failures the cost of the project has more than doubled in just four years to almost £400 million and magistrates' courts still do not have the IT systems they need to manage their workload properly.

The punchline comes when you find out that someone called Annette Vernon was working in increasingly senior IT positions at the DCA throughout this time, starting in 1999 before becoming CIO in 2004. She's now <drumroll> the CIO of the Identity and Passport Service. Berbum-tching. Oh, and the 200-odd organisations already on the ID Cards supplier list [pdf] include Fujitsu. And CapGemini. And Capita. Strangely, Accenture aren't on there (perhaps they lost the form, or their computer crashed). EDS are, though, and Mapeley (the offshore tax-avoiders who own the Revenue's offices), and Siemens, and Liberata, who've also done business with the DCA.

The oddest names on the list are big US arms companies like General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Possibly they intend to use F-16s to enforce ID card enrollment.

"Northrop Grumman" provide

On April 5th, 2006 ziz (not verified) says:

"Northrop Grumman" provide the whole of the UK Police Forces (and have for many years) with their Fingerprint Data Library (located in the US of A) and Recognition Service. Visit their website for more info they also produce a qtly mag with updates etc.,

I am Type II Diabetic and have my retinas photographed annually by NHS (5 years now)I signd a release form for access to my images in the "computerised database" for researchers etc., when I started - the database is still not up and running ..... I think, but do not know that it is NHS internal IT , but nobody is telling.

Just so you get it right:

On April 5th, 2006 goatchurch says:

Just so you get it right: "Accenture" is pronounced "Ass-Enter".