PAC loses patience with IT project

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has begun to question the purpose of its work if Whitehall accepts all its recommendations on IT projects "but still cannot ensure a minimum standard of competence".

Reviewing the National Offender Management Information System (C-NOMIS), the committee has become exasperated with the lack of progress made despite the number of recommendations made in the past to fix issues. It has highlighted in particular how government appears reluctant to provide experience and resources to a very important and expensive project.

"It is deeply depressing that after numerous highly critical PAC reports on IT projects in recent years, the same mistakes have occurred once again," the report said. "We question the purpose of our hard work if Whitehall accepts all our recommendations but still cannot ensure a minimum standard of competence."

Referring to C-NOMIS, the committee found the project had been "handled badly resulting in a three year delay in programme roll-out, reductions in scope and benefit, and a doubling of programme costs".

The report found the project's planning was "unrealistic" due to an over-optimistic good news culture, which was not challenged enough by senior management as they did not have an in-depth knowledge of the business. More specifically, the report found the project's senior responsible owner lacked the relevant experience to run it.

"Departments should assess and, where appropriate, strengthen their capacity to manage major projects. In particular, the senior responsible owner should have sufficient relevant project management experience, training, capacity and support to perform the role effectively. If necessary, departments should appoint a candidate from another government body or elsewhere," it added.

The committee also raised the fact that no one has been held to account for the decisions that led to an estimated £41m being wasted. The individuals who were responsible for the key decisions and the project's monitoring have all retired or moved on, it said, adding that "it is not enough to wait for blame to follow failure".

C-NOMIS's original plans included a single database that would provide a single offender record. The records would then be accessible by all service providers who come into contact with an offender. Due to the extent of the project's failure, it will now provide three databases, each recording different information about an offender, with limited data sharing between them.

The report said it was essential that programme was developed in future "with the desirability for data sharing enhancements in mind". It added that once delivered, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), the organisation responsible for the project, should assess the adequacy of its current limited data sharing capacity with its partners and third party providers.

Edward Leigh, chairman of PAC, said: "This committee has become inured to the dismal procession of government IT failures which have passed before us; but even we were surprised by the extent of the failure of C-NOMIS, the ambitious project to institute a single database to manage individual offenders through the prison and probation systems.

"This project has been a shambles. We now expect the substantial progress in its implementation promised by NOMS to be capable of being demonstrated satisfactorily to a future hearing of the committee."

Richard Bacon, a fellow member of the committee, said the scale of the government's failure "leaves one gasping for breath".

"There is now a real danger that the failures of schemes like C-NOMIS are losing their power to shock. So many government computer schemes begin life by underestimating complexity and overestimating the chances for success," he said.

"No-one seriously believes C-NOMIS will be the last great computer disaster made in Whitehall but the government must find a way to break the cycle of failure. Taxpayers cannot afford to put up with this any longer."

A spokesman for the Prison Service said: "The C-NOMIS project was stopped when it was recognised that it was going to be over-budget and late. Steps have been taken to ensure that the mistakes made are not repeated.

"The work done so far has not been lost but is being used as the basis of the revised NOMIS programme. This will support our commitment to ensuring that prison and probation service staff have improved access to the information they need to protect the public by managing offenders in custody and in the community."

He added: "The prison element of the programme commenced roll out to public sector prisons on 22 May 2009 and is on schedule to complete in summer 2010."

In an attempt to prevent further issues on this scale, the report has also made recommendations for how other organisations can avoid the mistakes made on C-NOMIS. The recommendations cover identifying risks, monitoring progress properly and taking action to mitigate risks as they emerge.