The Government has over the past 5 years or so kept the UK IT industry pretty much alive, during a period of slump in this particular industry. But at what price. 

They have all but destroyed the UK IT contractor market, implemented the infamous IR35 legislation,  which in turn had the knock on effect of removing some of the most innovative IT contractors and Project Managers from the market place altogether, only to repopulate the IT market with cheap foreign workers. 

The government gave approximately 137,000 work permits for overseas IT workers for each of the last 5 years, in order to keep its costs down on its massive agenda of government IT projects, on the lie that there was a skills shortage.   It was a shortage wilfully created.

They are now working to hammer the last remnants of the indigenous UK marketplace by attacking the managed service company structure. They have engineered the UK IT contractor market to the detriment of our own people, and stifled the ability of a small IT company becoming a big IT company.

What we are primarily left with now are the big IT Consulting groups, who have soaked up the few contractors who want to work in regulated environments, and who through the good offices of the e-regulators have won the majority of the government IT work.

In May 2004 the first ever head of e-government – arguably the most senior IT figure in the public sector – was named as Ian Watmore, the then UK managing director of Accenture, who has become one of the UK's most highly paid civil servants.

Watmore is now also head of the Cabinet Office eGovernment Unit (eGU) has been further promoted to head the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit (PMDU). The new role will focus on delivering the public service reforms at the heart of the New Labour agenda.

Watmore will continue to focus on the Transformational Government strategy published last month and will also retain his place on the Chief Information Officer Council. 

But the downside to this is that whilst the initial planning and budgeting work, the presentations to ministers and select committees is done by experienced professional consultants, the implementation work is more often than not left to graduates, a trait of all of the consulting groups, who do not have the market experience to run projects of this size and complexity, and are learning their skills at our expense.

The other major problem is that all government contracts of this size must be run under the Prince2 methodology, the ‘Projects in Controlled Environments’ project method devised and owned by OGC (Office of Government Commerce), and because it is being applied by graduate consultants, it tends to be applied to the letter, or painting by numbers, and looses any adaptability or flexibility needed to ensure success. 

Public Accounts Committee chairman Edward Leigh said: "Far too often, major IT-enabled projects in government departments are late, well over budget, or do not work at all - an enormous waste of taxpayers' money."

According to the PAC report, 254 IT projects had been reviewed, with 50 per cent getting an amber rating, 28 per cent red, and 22 per cent green. 

Using the Prince2 methodology, there should be 100 per cent green ratings, as the gating and review processes should eliminate or at least highlight and remedy any associated risks, but one in five projects have actually got worse as they progressed through the Gateway process, and two in five failed to get better, the report reveals.

The latest of the great government IT failures to hit the headlines is the ID cards. 

The government has abandoned its plans for a giant new computer system to run the national identity cards scheme. Instead of a single multi-billion pound system, information will be held on three existing, separate databases.  It is rumoured but not confirmed that the 3 databases in mind are the Department of Works and Pensions, The Passport Office and the DVLA.

The government has reportedly already spent about £35m on IT consultants since the ID cards project began in 2004, so that’s down the drain.  

The DWP database is still under build, and the portions that are up and running reportedly have capacity problems, so this is not necessarily fit for purpose.

The Passport Office database also has reported capacity problems and is in the process of major change with the introduction of Biometric Passports, which have attracted their own technology scandal, so we can probably regard this as unfit for purpose as well, 

and the third database the DVLA, probably the most stable, but is well known for selling its information to commercial and other customers.   Great for security considerations, so not really first choice as being fit for purpose on a secure national ID scheme.

The same kind of problems befall the NHS systems, initiated under Richard Granger, who was a partner with Deloitte Consulting before he joined the health service. 

One would think that a national database would mean a single design, rolled out across the nation.  What has happened is that the contracts were awarded to originally 4 competing suppliers, although this number is now down to 3, we effectively have 3 differently designed systems being rolled out, with different supplier expectations, where the interfaces and overlaps rarely function properly, and the security and privacy issues are still making headline news.

So why are all these projects failing.?

Is it Poor Project Management?  Is it bad planning ?  Is it the overriding need for profits and billing by the consulting groups running these projects ?  Could it be that the Politicians just don’t understand what a high level decision means in terms of technology and delivery?

Whatever the reasons, the projects are still failing, and we are seeing the same players, using the same project tools, making the same mistakes.  But it’s only Tax Payer money, so it apparently doesn’t matter. 

No matter how many systems and projects fail, its the same companies that are invited back to do the next one.