MPs await Whitehall's response to IT proposals

MPs will have to wait until later this year to hear the government's response to criticisms of the way major IT projects are run.

A report by the Commons Work and Pensions select committee last week called for greater openness in Whitehall IT projects and stronger powers for Whitehall buying arm the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

The committee proposed that the OGC is given powers to impose recommendations made during the six-level Gateway Review process and to ensure departments follow best practice guidelines. It also suggested that Gateway reports should be made public.

The OGC told Computing it is unwilling to comment in advance of the Department of Work and Pensions' official response to the committee later this year, but in the past has advised against publishing the reports.

'Publication would change the current openness of people talking to the Gateway teams, and the way the reports are written. They are punchy and to the point and if they were public they would take longer to write and longer to clear, and lose their real-time promptness,' OGC Gateway programme executive director Ian Glenday told Computing in March.

The committee also proposes a review of the US Clinger-Cohen Act designed to legislate against common causes of IT project failure.

'On balance, given the dynamic processes involved, we are not convinced that a statutory basis is currently required in order to increase compliance,' says the report.

'However we recommend that the government invites the OGC to undertaken and complete a review by 1 July 2005 into the likely effect of implementing the Clinger-Cohen statutory framework in the UK,' it says.