TheIdentity and Passport
Service (IPS)has cancelled an
over-complicated replacement online passport applications system
after rising costs and glitches, which led to about 5,000
applications becoming stuck in the system.
The IPS told Computer Weekly that it has written off £10.9m in
development costs because of the cancellation of the Electronic
Passport Application system EPA2.
When the system went live in 2006, passport applications became
jammed in the system and performance slowed to the point where a
backlog of 5,000 applications built up. The IPS withdrew EPA2 and
has decided against relaunching it.
The IPS has reverted to using the older EPA1. Compared with
EPA2, if it were functioning correctly, EPA1 has no facility for
paying online, is much slower because applications can take up to
four weeks, and it requires paperwork with applicants to be
exchanged in the post.
An IPS spokesman said, "After careful evaluation of technical
and commercial considerations, the IPS management board decided to
cancel the project.
"The costs of the simplified system, and IPS's inability to
recover its investment before new systems became available meant
that further investment was not justified."
The IPS has also owned up to what went wrong on two other major
IT projects last year. In a break from normal government practice,
the IPS has published the lessons.
Bernard Herdan, executive director for service planning and
delivery, said he wants others to avoid similar mistakes.
This month the IPS completes the roll-out of IT systems for 68
offices it has set up to interview first-time applicants for
passports - the Authentication By Interview project.
Herdan said the IPS was over-optimistic about how quickly the IT
could be rolled out. The start of the roll-out was delayed by about
six months - and there were difficulties synchronising the hiring
of 600 staff to interview applicants with the roll-out of IT to
support them.
But the IPS had successes with three large projects last year.
It began the annual reporting of lessons from its projects and
programmes in 2007 in response to a call by Computer Weekly that
it, and other departments, should do so.
Its openness and experience has earned the IPS the respect of
other departments - in 2007 it won a civil service award for the
Best Project and Programme Management across government.
Joe Harley, CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions, said in
2007 that only about 30% of projects and programmes are
successful.
Read more on the NPfIT on Tony's blog