Another government IT bill spirals out of control
Posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 by Home Office WatchCategory: Departmental Administration, Prison, Probation
We all know that the Labour Government doesn’t have the best track record of delivering IT projects on budget and on time (and we’re not even going to mention ID cards). So it’s with a heavy heart that I bring you news of another Whitehall computer-related farce, this time from the shiny new Ministry of Justice.
The National Offender Management System was supposed to keep tabs on the country’s 300,000 prisoners and probationers. The budget for the system of £234 million has, according to The Guardian, “proved to be optimistic” - with the current estimate for the project reaching four times that, well on its way to £1 billion. Consequently, the Government has now frozen the whole project and cancelled the rollout to thirty more prisons that was supposed to happen by the end of the year.
The Ministry of Justice last night confirmed that a “rapid review” of the custody-Noms information system, officially known as C-Nomis, is under way. Ministers are to decide in mid-September how much of the project can be salvaged. It is expected that it will be adopted in a scaled-down form for the 140 prisons in England and Wales but is unlikely to be rolled out across the probation service. Cancellation could involve paying the contractors, EDS, a £50m penalty.
The Government has spent £155m so far on the project. Value for money, as ever.
Read the full story here.
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