The House of Commons Public Administration Committee's 12th Report investigated the value for money Whitehall gets out of IT Projects. The analysis isn't pretty; it paints a picture of a poorly managed procurement process where swanky headline features are the most desirable aspect of a project, rather than functionality. But this is overshadowed by the belief that during recession and years of deficit spending Whitehall may well have been spending as much as ten times the actual value of the project on its' implementation. A source identifies one potential cause for this high cost: a 'cartel' of IT suppliers colluding to keep prices high. That claim is vigorously denied by industry body Intellect.

Somewhat less discussed by the media is what appears to be a culture of poor management where finding answers to simple questions is difficult or even impossible because the data requested did not exist. The Report mentions one instance of a Minister having to ask the supplier how much they were spending because they didn't collect that information. How these projects could be effectively audited is anyone's guess, but without doubt those practices would lead to overspend purely down to low understanding of historical project costs.

The Report is careful not to blame anyone except 'the system', especially a desire almost to see creating large IT projects as policy rather than using IT projects to facilitate implementing policy. IT literacy in Whitehall must also be a significant concern going forward; as more IT is outsourced to private corporations Government has difficulty holding on to experienced staff due to lack of a clearly designated career path.

Encompassing better data handling, smaller contract sizes, improving IT knowledge and understanding in government and moving to open standards, the Reports' recommendations are wide-ranging and rigorous. Present Government will no doubt jump on suggestions of opening up the bidding process to more companies and reducing the overall size of projects to below £100m, but it remains to be seen how well it will address the requirements of better auditing and training for senior civil servants.

The full report is available online here, and Guardian Professional has an excellent write-up and analysis, including responses from industry sources, here.

UK Gov. Greatly Overpays For IT Projects Claims Source in New Committee Report