Axe falls on single login plan

Mountain: new project advisory board is to be welcomed

Plans to develop a single login for citizens accessing government services have been halted in favour of a system that has been up and running since 2001.

Investment in the CGI Excelsior software that was to be the authentication engine of the £27m Government Connects (GC) programme has been stopped. The Cabinet Office-run Government Gateway system – already widely employed for submission of online tax returns – will now be used instead.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) team running the programme says the development work with Excelsior was only an interim measure while Gateway was given extra capacity.

‘At this point a tactical solution is not required and we decided to stop any further investment in it and focus resources on the July delivery date using Gateway,’ says a statement from DCLG.

But critics say the shift shows a lack of joined-up thinking.

‘We know there is a silo mentality in government and people run private fiefdoms, so why be surprised when a department designs a project, works on it and then finds out something already exists,’ said a source.

GC has already caused consternation in the supplier community. In January, a letter from trade group Intellect, leaked to Computing, called the Excelsior scheme ‘premature and commercially unsound’.

A Technical Advisory Group to be co-chaired by DCLG and Intellect is being launched this week to act as a sounding board for new developments.

Kate Mountain, chief executive of local government IT user group Socitm, welcomes the proposal.

‘We are pleased to be involved in a scheme that will increase the transparency of processes and the effectiveness of engagement with a key group of stakeholders,’ she said.

Intellect public sector director Nick Kalisperas said: ‘We have consistently said that in order for a project to deliver the desired outcomes there needs to be open and honest dialogue between customers and suppliers.’

The authentication part of GC will allow citizens to identify themselves once and then be recognised by all public sector bodies subscribing to the scheme.