IT projects responsible for £11bn cost overruns

The NHS IT scheme is responsible for much of the overspend

IT projects have contributed to more than £11bn of a total overspend of £19bn in public sector capital spending projects by the government, according to a new analysis from the TaxPayers' Alliance.

The biggest culprit was The National Programme for IT, which is forecast to come in £10.3bn over budget, though only a fraction of this has actually been spent as a result of restrictive initial contracts with suppliers and the slow progress of the scheme.

A system to link and improve magistrates court systems known as Libra ran over budget by £341m.

Another Ministry of Justice project which is to provide an end-to-end record for those in prison and the probation service known as Nomis came in at £279m over budget.

While the Department of Work and Pensions customer information system, which holds benefit data on large swathes of the population cost £48m more than forecast.

Next up was the Armed Forces joint personnel system, known as JPA, which ran over budget by £24m.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive at the TaxPayers' Alliance said the Government's record on handling large IT projects is shambolic.

"The NHS IT scheme has been mismanaged from start to finish, and the public sector must do more to make sure that such overruns do not happen in future," he said.

"The state of the public finances means that it's more important than ever to ensure value for money is achieved on IT capital projects."

IT projects should learn from the successes of capital spending projects which prove that it is possible to come in on time and on budget, the report says.

Fundamental to the success of any project is “consistent leadership, strong governance and close monitoring by a central project management team," it says.

The report notes that these attributes will become all the more important as department as an imminent fiscal squeeze hits public sector budgets.