The Department for Transport is today accused by MPs of "stupendous incompetence" over an efficiency drive that was meant to save taxpayers £57m by 2015 but now looks set to cost them an extra £81m.
In one of the most damning reports of recent years, the Commons' influential Public Accounts Committee says the implementation of the DFT's shared corporate services project was "one of the worst cases of project management" it had ever seen.
The department's plan was for the central part of the DFT and its seven agencies to be sharing IT services by April 2008.
Edward Leigh, the committee chairman, explained how the department knew that it was running to a tight timetable but, without a robust challenge to such a risky strategy, ploughed on regardless. "The result," said the Conservative MP, "was lamentable".
He explained how the underlying computer system was inadequately procured and tested, resulting in an unstable set-up when it was switched on.
"DFT staff do not trust the system, which is hardly surprising when we hear that on occasion it took to issuing messages in German," said Mr Leigh.
He added: "So far only the central department and two of its agencies are using it."
"Remember," he stressed, "that this was an efficiency drive aimed at saving £57m by 2015. It now looks like the taxpayer will have to stump up £81m to pay for it."
Mr Leigh added: "The DFT must now work to deliver a functioning system which provides benefits and which its users trust. The department must overhaul its project management capabilities, closely examining the expertise of its project managers."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article