Home Office disputes claims over ID card costs

Independent report commissioned to justify proposed expense of plan

The Home Office is using an independent audit from consultant KPMG to counter claims from the London School of Economics (LSE) that the introduction of ID cards could cost as much as £19.2bn.

Selected extracts from the report have been published by junior Home Office minister Andy Burnham to justify the department’s assertion that average running costs for issuing passports to UK nationals will amount to just £584m annually, with overall costs of £5.8bn.

But KPMG would only go so far as to conclude that ‘the methodology used to cost the ID cards proposals is robust and appropriate for this stage of development’.
The published extract from the report does not include any actual figures. In a written statement to MPs, Burnham also omitted to mention that the report calls the 10-year assumption for how long the cards will last ‘questionable’.

KPMG also raises concerns about the government’s claim that it will take two years to establish data centres for the scheme.

‘There are few data centres available on the market that meet the requirements, and the new building timescale is three years,’ says the report.

KPMG also says enrolment timescales are a critical driver of the card enrolment process costs, and recommends process simulations to get an idea of volume throughput at various times.

And the report warns of ‘some uncertainty and conflicting evidence’ over the licensing cost for biometric technologies.

The Home Office says it welcomes the report’s ‘independent comments, observations and recommendations’, and says further reassessments of costs will only be possible at procurement stage, but this cannot take place before the bill receives Royal Assent.