[Continued from yesterday - Fujitsu's protracted legal dispute with NHS CfH and the Department of Health is circumscribed by the government's unwillingness to see any major IT legal dispute go to open court and a judgement]
A senior lawyer, who has decades of experience of IT litigation, says he is unaware of any central government department taking a major IT dispute to trial and judgement.
There is evidence of the government's reluctance to allow senior civil servants to take the stand in an open court. In April 2002 a High Court hearing which had lasted 44 days ended suddenly when airlines running the loss-making National Air Traffic Services (Nats) agreed to pay millions of pounds to computer services supplier EDS.
The settlement came on the day the most high-profile witness in the case, Civil Aviation Authority chairman Sir Roy McNulty, was due to take the witness stand. He was expected to be asked about evidence he gave to the Commons transport committee when he was chairman of Nats.
EDS had brought the case against Nats.
It's true that lawyers advising Fujitsu are unlikely to say: "We have to pay Fujitsu's claim because we can never let this go to court." On the other hand, officials know their ability to counter-threaten Fujitsu is weakened by the government's known reluctance to allow civil servants to be cross-examined in the witness box about how things work and don't work inside Whitehall departments.
So "Fujitsu versus the Department of Health" is not likely to appear on any daily court list.
The Department of Health is defensive and secretive at the best of times - a point made to the House of Lords' Communications committee when it held an inquiry into the Government's relationships with the media.
But the DH and CfH are particularly secretive and defensive over the National Programme for IT. They haven't published any of their own reviews into the scheme, though they did, to give them credit, publish 31 Gateway reviews on the programme.
The trouble from the government's point of view is that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and former health ministers who include Lord Hutton, Lord Warner, Caroline Flint and Ben Bradshaw have vigorously defended the NPfIT in Parliament, in public statements, or at press conferences.
So NPfIT officials and ministers will not welcome a court hearing in which claims and counter claims about the UK government's largest IT investment are aired in front of journalists [and in the run up to a General Election].
Being more than a year since the contract was terminated, the two sides are likely to have been through the pre-litigation stages which are stipulated in the contract, such as arbitration.
So where can their mutually-respected antagonism go now? A settlement may come shortly before next year's General Election, and be kept quiet. The Tories, if they win, may reveal the amount because they would have nothing to lose by the publicity.
All of which leaves Fujitsu holding all the legal aces. The same goes for any other IT suppliers that find themselves in dispute with central departments.
It's a pity the mandarinate has so much to hide from the IT industry, the public, Parliament, and the media that its unofficial motto on legal disputes is: "Sue us and we won't see you in court".
Links:
NPfIT board minutes in which termination of Fujitsu contract is reported - NHS CfH website
Gordon Brown defends NPfIT - IT Projects blog
It's true that lawyers advising Fujitsu are unlikely to say: "We have to pay Fujitsu's claim because we can never let this go to court." On the other hand, officials know their ability to counter-threaten Fujitsu is weakened by the government's known reluctance to allow civil servants to be cross-examined in the witness box about how things work and don't work inside Whitehall departments.
So "Fujitsu versus the Department of Health" is not likely to appear on any daily court list.
The Department of Health is defensive and secretive at the best of times - a point made to the House of Lords' Communications committee when it held an inquiry into the Government's relationships with the media.
But the DH and CfH are particularly secretive and defensive over the National Programme for IT. They haven't published any of their own reviews into the scheme, though they did, to give them credit, publish 31 Gateway reviews on the programme.
The trouble from the government's point of view is that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and former health ministers who include Lord Hutton, Lord Warner, Caroline Flint and Ben Bradshaw have vigorously defended the NPfIT in Parliament, in public statements, or at press conferences.
So NPfIT officials and ministers will not welcome a court hearing in which claims and counter claims about the UK government's largest IT investment are aired in front of journalists [and in the run up to a General Election].
Being more than a year since the contract was terminated, the two sides are likely to have been through the pre-litigation stages which are stipulated in the contract, such as arbitration.
So where can their mutually-respected antagonism go now? A settlement may come shortly before next year's General Election, and be kept quiet. The Tories, if they win, may reveal the amount because they would have nothing to lose by the publicity.
All of which leaves Fujitsu holding all the legal aces. The same goes for any other IT suppliers that find themselves in dispute with central departments.
It's a pity the mandarinate has so much to hide from the IT industry, the public, Parliament, and the media that its unofficial motto on legal disputes is: "Sue us and we won't see you in court".
Links:
NPfIT board minutes in which termination of Fujitsu contract is reported - NHS CfH website
Gordon Brown defends NPfIT - IT Projects blog
