The government has accepted criticism and
recommendations from thePublic Accounts Committeeon
thefailed IT system for the Rural Payments Agency(RPA) and other public sector projects.
Committee chairman, Edward Leigh, said he was pleased that a
single individual will handle a farmer's claim under the EU's
Single Payment Scheme from start to finish. This makes it easier to
track progress on each claim, he said.
A bespoke IT system to handle payments to farmers was scrapped
after it failed to work and cost more than £120m, more than £50m
overbudget. "The agency has taken steps to revert to 'whole case
working' since March 2006 so that each claim is assigned to a
member of staff. Further IT system enhancements are planned to
improve the service provided to claimants," Leigh said.
The government also accepted it can no longer claim savings by
transferring procurement costs to other budgets. This was a result
of the
PAC's review of the Ministry of Defence's procurement of major
defence equipment, which found that claimed savings of £448m
were essentially fictitious.
Another change is that the health care system will now focus
more on healing patients rather than treating them. "The government
is now taking steps to ensure that outcome measures for quality and
safety are included in the NHS's new commissioning arrangements for
primary medical care," he said.
"Overall, all of the 45 recommendations in the five reports have
been broadly accepted by the government," Leigh said.