Treasury admits to long delays in IT projects
Problems revealed in response to parliamentary question
IT projects at the Treasury are being delayed by a cumulative total of 17 years.
Financial secretary John Healey revealed the figures in a reply to a parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vincent Cable.
LibDem researchers identified delays ranging from a few months to more than three years affecting projects run by organisations including HM Revenue and Customs, Royal Mint, Office of Government Commerce, National Savings and Investments and the Office for National Statistics.
But the figures do not show the implication of the delays, with some believed to be for systems costing just a few thousand pounds.
‘With the Treasury, allegedly the guardian of government efficiency programmes, finding it so hard to keep IT projects to schedule, it would be madness to go ahead with further large plans such as ID cards,’ said Cable.
The majority of public sector IT projects are delivered to time and on cost, and are delivering vital public services daily, according to the Treasury.
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