ID cards in doubt as key contract is delayed

ID cards – will they ever happen?

The future of the controversial ID cards scheme is in further doubt after reports that the government has delayed awarding a key contract until after the next general election.

Fujitsu, IBM and Thales have been bidding to be selected as supplier for one of the core deals in the £4.8bn programme – for designing and producing the actual identity cards.

But according to The Financial Times, the Home Office has delayed the project, and said it might not be awarded until autumn 2010 – after the election that must be held next year.

Earlier this week, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Grayling wrote to the five IT suppliers involved in the ID cards scheme – CSC and EDS are the other two – to warn them against signing new long-term contracts, as the Tories would scrap the plan should they come to power.

“I am increasingly concerned that the government is putting in place contractual arrangements that are designed to tie the hands of a future government, and I want to make the contractors absolutely aware that we do not intend to complete this work,” said Grayling.

The contracts awarded so far for the ID cards scheme have been focused around the applications process for cards and biometric features – projects that will still be relevant to updating passport systems and introducing new fingerprint recognition capabilities into passports, all of which will proceed regardless of the future of ID cards.

The Home Office is already reviewing the ID cards scheme as part of what it claims is a routine briefing for new home secretary Alan Johnson, who is believed to be less enthusiastic about the programme than his predecessors.