The Department for Work and Pensions has cancelled a
£141m core IT programme less than three months after giving an
assurance to parliament that new funding for aspects of the scheme
had been approved.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Philip Hammond said the
discrepancy between the reassuring parliamentary reply in June 2006
and the cancellation of the scheme in August highlighted the poor
quality of information provided to parliament on the progress of
major IT schemes.
The DWP, which is the largest department in central government,
with more than 110,000 end-users, has declined to explain the
discrepancy in its parliamentary reply.
The department has also refused to release any of the
independent Gateway reviews of its cancelled Benefit Processing
Replacement Programme (BPRP).
Last year the DWP described the BPRP as part of a "key strategic
initiative, which will provide modernised benefit processing to
support DWP".
The three-year programme was based on commercial off-the-shelf
products from Siebel, Curam and IBM.
In June, Conservative MP Tim Boswell asked the government about
the costs and timetable for capital spending on the BPRP, which is
part of the department's Working Age and Transformation Change2
programme, dubbed Watch2.
In a reply, the DWP told Boswell, "A departmental investment
committee recently approved funding for the completion of the
Watch2 projects and for the BPRP to develop its overall scope and
delivery timetable by June 2006."
No mention was made to parliament of the possibility that the
BPRP, on which £141m has been spent, may be cancelled. And no
announcement was made on the ending of the scheme, although the DWP
has confirmed that it has been cancelled.
Hammond said, "The decision making process on funding for the
BPRP is very unclear. Serious lessons must be learned from this
experience so that the government stops wasting taxpayers' money
and starts delivering the improved public services these projects
are designed to support."
Read article:
Government should be clear about £140m lessons
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