The government is changing how it monitors IT projects
following criticisms from MPs.
The comments were contained in a report into the government's
IT-related failure to allocate EU farm payments effectively.
The report, published last month by the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Committee, highlighted the inability of the
Office of
Government Commerce (OGC) to halt failing IT projects as a
key factor in the farm payments debacle, which pushed thousands
of farmers to the brink of bankruptcy.
In response to this and other similar failures, the Treasury is
forming the Major Projects Review Group, which will have powers to
stop a failing government IT project before it goes live.
The system should give more weight to the OGC's existing powers
to conduct Gateway reviews into failing IT projects.
A spokesman for the OGC said the move was partly in response to
criticism that it lacked teeth in ensuring that its recommendations
were acted on by government departments.
"You could argue that was a weakness in the remit we had. That
is not something for us to answer we could only work within the
remit we had. It is down to the project's senior responsible owner
to act on the report," a spokesman for the OGC said.
The government now proposes that, as well as going to the
department that manages the IT project, Gateway reviews will go to
the Major Project Review Group.
The group would then have powers to halt failing IT projects if
the department did not act on the recommendations in the
review.
Eric Woods, government practice director at research firm Ovum,
said that with so many government IT projects becoming
interdependent, it was sensible that an agency outside each
department could assess their progress.
"The government has realised that IT has become crucial in
delivery policy and that it needs to be taken back into the broader
governance of government. There is a recognition that it needs to
do more and that some things have slipped though the net," Woods
said.
A spokesman for the Treasury said the group would be established
during the summer.
Related article:
Government watchdog
rapped by MPs
Related article:
Rural payments
scheme failures
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